THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: M's recent tale of woe: Lack of clutch hitting

The Mariners didn’t play on Monday.

Feel free to inject your own punch line here about choosing not to play all season.

They are heading off on the road (where they are 14-21) and leaving behind the ashes of a flame-out homestand, on which they went 3-8.

The Mariners wrapped up this disastrous effort at T-Mobile Park by losing four of five to a ragged Angels team that came to town having won exactly two of its past 20 games.

Ugh.

Seattle is now 29-39, eight games removed from the third and final American League wild-card spot, and seems to be tumbling backward rather than making any type of charge back into a possible postseason run.

Given all these ugly numbers, here is a fairly stunning stat …

Since May 25, the Mariners’ rotation has been pretty close to lights out.

In those 25 games, Seattle starters have a 2.69 ERA — third-best in all of MLB.

Oh, and somehow the M’s were 11-14 in that span, playing below .500 while the pitching staff was been spectacular.

That goes against almost all conventional trends in baseball, by the way.

So, how?

WELL, YOU have to consider Seattle’s truly dismal offense.

In that stretch from May 25 through Sunday, the Mariners were shut out five times.

But here’s the bigger picture ...

Seattle leads the major leagues in runners left on base, and even more crucially, in runners left in scoring position.

Somehow, the Mariners have assembled the worst gang of situational hitters in recent history — or else, we’re seeing a lineup that should be pushing across runs just trying so hard that it’s tying itself in knots.

“We get traffic on the bases, and then we don’t execute,” said manager Scott Servais.

“I’d actually be more worried if we weren’t getting guys on.”

In truth, Servais needs to worry about every phase of the Mariners offense.

But, yes, that habit of leaving runners in scoring position is most often the killer.

“This is not fun,” said Ty France, who has been sitting above .400 with runners in scoring position most of the year.

“This is not what we expected coming into this year, and we need to turn things around fast.”

France has a healthy 44 RBIs, but has gotten little help with pushing in runs.

Eugenio Suarez has done his share with 12 homers and 35 RBIs, but everyone else has struggled.

Rookie sensation Julio Rodriguez will be a real danger with men on base eventually — maybe even soon — but he’s clearly swinging too hard in crucial situations, and letting savvy pitchers tease him into flailing at sliders out of the strike zone.

Meanwhile, Jesse Winker (a 2021 All-Star with Cincinnati) looks nothing like the career .300 hitter who was the highlight of Seattle’s major off-season trade.

Winker is a curious case — with an anemic .207 batting average — a player who has consistently produced line drives who now is managing mostly pop flies.

And unlike Rodriguez, it’s not like Winker is chasing terrible pitches.

In fact, he leads the American League in walks with 42.

SO MANY mysteries …

Adam Frazier hit .305 and joined Winker on the National League All-Star team last year, but he’s limping along at .227.

Luis Torrens and Abraham Toro looked like promising hitters when the Mariners acquired them last year, but Toro has sunk below .200 and Torrens — who belted 12 homers a year ago — has hit none.

Of course, all this misery has been even more pronounced with long-term injuries to Mitch Haniger, Kyle Lewis and Tom Murphy.

That trio would almost surely have produced plenty of runs, but they’ve managed just a total of 83 at-bats among them this season.

Lewis played only four games and looked in mid-season form with a pair of home runs.

Murphy could be back in a few weeks, but Haniger (high ankle sprain) and Lewis (concussion) are long-term casualties who would need rehab assignments just to get back to big-league levels.

Then there’s Jarred Kelenic, the phenom who was supposed to be in the middle of a solid lineup this season.

Kelenic went into an early-season swoon, and is trying to find his game at Tacoma — where he’s hitting .282, but with the same lack of plate discipline (7 walks, 34 strikeouts) that have plagued him with the Mariners.

If you’re a glass-half-full sort of person …

Having an outstanding pitching rotation is the building block of playoff teams, so the Mariners should get there.

Eventually.

If you go for the glass half empty …

Sorry, I can’t help you.

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press three times each week. He also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published monthly during the offseason, and weekly beginning in October.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”