Gosh, the series against the A's didn't suck that badly, did it?

Sad to say, it did. Going through mlb.com's Gamedays of the past three ball games, I counted 52 at-bats with runners on base, and the Mariners collecting 13 hits in those situations for a .250 average. Minus the 6-for-13 performance in Tuesday night's blow-out, and that average takes quite a tumble to .180. Considering that espn.com has the Mariners hitting .271 with runners on, that means the A's pulled their Bob Gibson-impression once again on the Mariners and stymied them to one hundred points below their average. If you thought that was a lot of runners being left hung to dry, you weren't the only one. 50 runners being left on base makes for a loooooooong three-game series. No wonder Hargrove kept the team in the clubhouse for a fifty-seven minute long meeting.

And was I the only one that felt the M's lacked patience in this series? Tracking the 105 plate appearances over the past three games, I found that the M's swung on the first offering from A's hitters more times (14) than on any other count. And for those free-swinging efforts? Two hits, equaling a fourteen perecent success rate. 1-1 and 1-0 counts were next popular, with 12 swings each, and seven hits being collected on 1-1 counts for a 58 percent success rate. However, three ball counts were only reached in 17 plate appearances- 16 perecent of the total number of PA- and only one hit to show for it, Ichiro's full-count single leading off today's game.

In a word: pathetic.

On the radio in Portland today one of the local hosts suggested that the Marienrs pull a Pedro and collectively call the A's their "daddy." The M's ineptitude at the hands of the A's over the past few seasons are maddening and frustrating and provide a huge clue as to how to win the division: buy beating the A's.

Bavasi, or whoever replaces him in the front office, should adopt a Theo Epstein appraoch to building the Mariners, and that is with one goal in mind. As Epstein is solely concentrating on beating the Yankees, bavasi should soley focus on the A's for every part of the Mariners development. Since the instigation of the unbalanced schedule in 2001, the Mariners controlled the series between the A's, winning 33 of 57 match-ups. Since 2004, however, the A's have turned the tables and have won, including this year, 29 of 44 games. The A's have simply dominated the M's, and as they continue to do so the Mariners may want to look into transferring into the National League.

That's why the Mariners should make an effort to pursue at least some of the following free agents:

Nomar Garciaparra, who has a .368 batting average and 1.000 OPS against the A's
Ivan Rodriguez, .306 BA, .827 OPS
Geoff Blum, .464 BA, 1.273 OPS in 28 AB (replacing Bloomquist as super-utility man)
David Bell, .306 BA, .851 OPS (why did the M's ever let him leave?)
Carlos Lee, .315 BA, .854 OPS
Jim Edmonds, .287 BA, .849 OPS
Mike Cameron, .292 BA, .843 OPS (Yayyyyyyyyyyy!)
Jermaine Dye, .319 BA, .917 OPS

Andy Pettite, 3.18 ERA in 99 innings versus A's
Mark Buehrle, 4.14 in 96 innings
Jason Schmidt, 3.86 in 23 innings
Jeff Suppan, 3.44 in 70 inninga
Doug Davis, 3.19 in 42 innings

There is no doubt about it: the A's are the evil empire, and the M's should make it their annual mission to bring them down.