{"id":1728,"date":"2015-06-01T18:52:57","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T18:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1728"},"modified":"2015-06-01T18:52:57","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T18:52:57","slug":"mariner-hitters-flirting-with-the-mendoza-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1728","title":{"rendered":"Mariner hitters flirting with the Mendoza Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cllay<\/a><\/p>\n

CLAY MOYLE AND SON CALEB<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Mario<\/a><\/p>\n

MARIO MENDOZA<\/p>\n

It has occurred to me for many weeks now that whenever I glance at the Seattle Mariners box score their lineup often includes as many as three starters who are batting below .200. Years ago, there was a weak hitting Mariner\u2019s shortstop by the name of Mario Mendoza who achieved a measure of notoriety for his futility at the plate. That futility became known as \u201chitting below the Mendoza Line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, Mario a .215 lifetime hitter would fit in well with this current bunch and might be called upon to pinch hit for a few of them on occasion.<\/p>\n

Mendoza, a good fielding shortstop, lasted a total of nine years in the majors. Over that period of time, he played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, and finally the Texas Rangers. He hit below .200 in five of the nine seasons he played, including .198 with the 1979 Mariners. But, he also enjoyed his best hitting season ever with Seattle when he hit .245 the following year.<\/p>\n

Mendoza wasn\u2019t the worst hitter in major league history. There are plenty of others who own a lifetime batting average worse than .215. Well-known sportscaster Bob Uecker (.200) is one of those.<\/p>\n

But, early one year, when future hall of famer George Brett was struggling at the plate, a couple of Mendoza\u2019s teammates were teasing Brett and told him he was going to fall below the \u201cMendoza line\u201d if he wasn\u2019t careful.<\/p>\n

Not long afterward, Brett mentioned the Mendoza Line during an interview with ESPN\u2019s Chris Berman and it spread like wildfire, ultimately becoming a part of baseball culture.<\/p>\n

The anemic Mariner\u2019s offense presently includes numerous ballplayers \u201chitting below the Mendoza Line\u201d including all of the following: Justin Ruggiano .190, Mike Zunino .188, Dustin Ackley .188, Rickie Weeks .183, Willie Bloomquist .182 and Chris Taylor .159.<\/p>\n

The Mariners\u2019 current team batting average of .236 matches that of the 2010 M\u2019s, considered the worst offensive team in franchise history.<\/p>\n

If you took away the outstanding numbers of Nelson Cruz, the only player on the team presently hitting above .272 with an average of .335 to go along with his 18 home runs, the team batting average would be a woeful .223.<\/p>\n

Their plate production, or lack thereof, obviously doesn\u2019t bode well for living up to the lofty preseason expectations for the team. I looked it up online and discovered that the lowest team batting average for any pennant winning team in major league history belonged to the 1969 miracle Mets. The Mets hit only.242 as a team that year, but featured some outstanding defensive players and a pitching staff that included Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and a young flamethrower by the name of Nolan Ryan.<\/p>\n

The baseball season isn\u2019t quite a third over yet and the hope is that at least one or two of those fellows presently hitting below the Mendoza Line will turn it around, but if this keeps up many of us will be longing for the days when Mario Mendoza\u2019s futility at the plate was the Mariners biggest offensive problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CLAY MOYLE AND SON CALEB   MARIO MENDOZA It has occurred to me for many weeks now that whenever I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-moyle","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1730,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728\/revisions\/1730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}