As major league baseball takes a three-day breather so that its best can participate in an exposition game 'that matters', it allows a chance to reflect on the progression of the season for the Seattle Mariners so far. In my pre-season post that I wrote last March I wrote that as a cautious assessment, "the Mariners will be a good team this year" and the best one of the Bavasi-Lincoln era. 85 games into the season, this has proven to be a pretty apt assessment. Of course, this doesn't guarantee anything except that Bavasi will be returning, for at least one more year.

I had the M's pegged to finish the season second in the division with 92 wins, a couple of games behind the Angels. As they're currently on pace for 93 wins- and go into the break 2.5 games behind Los Angeles (of Anaheim), that seems pretty much right on the money. Of course, I also had the M's losing out to the Blue Jays for the Wild Card by a handful of games, and my pick of Toronto to make the play-offs seems wildly off-mark, but one never knows how the second-half can shape out. If the play-offs were held today, Cleveland would just slip into the playoffs ahead of Seattle, but I am still standing firm with my pick of Detroit- with their best pitching staff in the league- to win both the pennant and the World Series.

One area that I greatly exaggerated my predictions, however, was in regards to the M's offense. I was confident that the team would have three 30-home-run hitters: Sexson, Beltre, and Ibanez. If current paces are maintained, the M's are going to lack any 30-home-run hitters at all, with Richie Sexson leading the team with 15, on pace to hit 28. Of course, I did think Sexson would struggle, and be hitting somewhere between .240-.250, and though Sexson is struggling, its hard to imagine that the M's are contending with a first baseman hitting .205, with a .299 on-base percentage.

Those were the numbers I had pegged for Jose Guillen, who I referred to prior to the season as a 'scrub' who would contribute little or nothing to the M's line-up. Playing on a one-year contract with many incentives, however, has inspired Guillen to be a consistent hitter who has filled in Sexson's former spot as the clean-up batter, and heads into the All-Star Break with a .283 average and ten home runs. Ibanez has disappointing power numbers on the year, and is one pace for just eleven home-runs, but is leading the team with 53 RBIs- on pace for 101- proving that with runners on, Raul can deliver. And with Jose Vidro clogging up the basepaths as the DH, this justifies Raul's rather 'interesting' routes to the balls in the field.

The break-out year that I had pegged for Adrian Beltre hasn't quite materialized, but he is on pace for about 25 home-runs and 85 RBIs, above-average numbers for an American League third-baseman. Ichiro has been, well, Ichiro, and if the Mariners' front office doesn't wise up and offer him $100 million-plus to tay in Seattle then they are a grossly incompetent judges of talent.

I had the M's pitching staff to be solid if not spectacular, lacking a solid ace. My numbers for Felix came out to an 11-8 record in 25 starts. Considering his average that was right at .500 for the first part of the season, plus the time lost due to injury, those numbers seemed alarmingly prescient. I did predict better things from Horacio Ramirez, that Jeff Weaver would be a non-factor (which he was for two months before morphing into a savior of the past few weeks), and Cha Seung Baek was my dark horse to be the staff's anchor, which is hilarious to admit. But the starting rotation has delivered quality starts when needed, thus ensuring any long losing streaks, besides one six-gamer, and making sure that the M's are in the game long enough so that it's true weapon- the bullpen- has an ability to be a factor in the game's bullpen.

The bullpen is unquestioningly the reason why the M's are within striking distance as the All Star break begins. With an offense that doesn't put a majority of games away , and a starting rotation keeping games close, the incredible performances by the bullpen has been a joy to witness. I thought Putz would be good, but not other-worldly. Putz is on pace to have 45 saves without blowing an opportunity- which begs the question, if Eric Gagne can be a Cy Young winner due to a perfect season closing games for the Dodgers, can't Putz be the same? All the role players- Sherrill, Green, O'Flaherty- have comprised a dominating corps, which has proven to matched the Angels' dominant starting pitchers, and portends to be an exciting second half of the season.

So what highlights lie in store for Mariners fans in the second half? Hopefully, a call-up of Adam Jones, who has been compared to the likes of Eric Davis and Ken Griffey Jr. Hopefully an announcement of a five-year contract agreed upon between Ichiro and the Mariners' front office. And- let's not get our hopes up too high, but it's nice to dream- without Hargrove around to over-see a second-half collapse, perhaps the M's can out-lasting such teams as the Indians, the Twins, even the Blue Jays, and sneak into a playoff spot. Man, oh man, would that be sweet...