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‘step-back’ M’s might just keep stepping backwards into playoffs

If this is the Mariners’ “step back” plan, perhaps they should just keep going to the same direction.

Maybe all the way to the Paleolithic era.

Those baseball seasons started around 2.6 million years ago — when a few current M’s pitchers were in rookie ball — so maybe GM Jerry Dipoto can just continue going backwards.

Remember, Dipoto spent an entire offseason warning fans not to expect the “realigned” Mariners to be any kind of pennant-chasing factor until 2020 or, more likely, around 2021.

It didn’t seem like a great idea for selling tickets this year — trading almost every meaningful player for kids to re-stock the minor league system and some very old big-leaguers to fill out the roster — but Dipoto asked M’s fans to view the whole plan “from 10,000 feet.”

However, it seems the current Mariners — many of whom aren’t household names even in their own homes — didn’t receive Dipoto’s memo about being crap.

They’ve started the season looking like the 1927 Yankees.

AS FOR that business about viewing from 10,000 feet, that’s just about how far new left fielder Domingo Santana hit a grand slam on opening night in Tokyo.

So far, that’s kind of been the theme as the Mariners rolled off to a 6-1 start through Monday night.

They’ve pretty much all just crushed the ball.

Seattle scored at least five runs in all seven games, which is likely to happen when you hit 16 home runs and stack up a shedload of extra-base hits beyond that.

And hey, the outside world has noticed.

Tim Beckham was named the year’s first American League Player of the Week.

Who?

Tim Beckham — c’mon you know! — the most-feared bashing shortstop in MLB since the early days of A-Rod.

After Monday night’s 6-3 win over the Angels — which Beckham got rocking with a two-run double in the first inning — the Mariners’ new superstar was hitting .423, with an absurd OPS of 1.401, three doubles and three big flies.

Beckham isn’t the one crushing it, by the way.

As a group, the M’s scored 54 runs in those seven games and they basically top the American League in every offensive category except caught stealing (they’re 10 for 11, with Dee Gordon and new center fielder Mallex Smith off and running).

Veteran first baseman Jay Bruce did hardly anything in the first few games — washed up, maybe? — and then unloaded very long bombs in three straight games over the weekend.

In fact, every Mariners regular but Gordon already has homered at least once.

It’s not like the Seattle’s “Step-Back Sluggers” have feasted on baseball’s most raggedy arms, either.

They nailed the always-stingy A’s during that two-game sweep in Japan, and then absolutely bombed the top four starters tossed out into the blaze by the World Series champion Red Sox.

The M’s are scoring like a slow-pitch softball team.

YOU KNOW that old adage about how pitching and defense win baseball games?

The Mariners refuse to buy it.

While they’re scoring at will, the starting pitchers have been pretty average, the bullpen is terrifying and they play defense like the Bad News Bears.

So far, perhaps the most hopeful outing by a starter came from Felix Hernandez, who had been 0-8 with a 6.65 ERA in his previous 11 outings.

Felix was decent over 5 1/3 innings against the Angels on Monday night, and left with a 4-3 lead despite the M’s committing four errors behind him.

But that’s about par for these guys.

Seattle has mangled its way to 13 errors (contributing to 11 unearned runs) in just those seven games.

Dylan Moore, who is normally used as a late-inning defensive sub at third base, started one game and committed three errors on consecutive plays.

Meanwhile, the bullpen is now missing presumptive closer Hunter Strickland for a couple months with a muscle injury.

Everyone but fans summoned from the stands has gotten late-inning assignments — with JUST enough success and luck that the Mariners’ large routine leads barely hold up.

In their only loss through Monday, they blew a 6-1 lead.

Dipoto just traded for Rangers washout Connor Sadzeck, a 6-foot-7, 240-pound monster who can throw it 100 miles per hour and basically strikes out everybody when he finds the zone — which unfortunately can be rarely.

Sadzeck must not be confused with injured reliever Anthony Swarzak, by the way.

If nothing else, the Mariners will beat you at Scrabble.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls…

Enjoy your step-back Mariners, the team that Jerry forgot.

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He also contributes the “Zags Tracker” package on Gonzaga basketball each Tuesday.

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Twitter: @BrandNewDayCDA

Email: scameron@cdapress.com