THE CHEAP SEATS WITH STEVE CAMERON: Playoff chance getting away from Mariners

Well, that didn’t take long.

The young and scrappy Mariners got themselves into genuine playoff chase with 35 games to play.

Just one weekend later, they need the Hubble telescope for any faint look at a wild-card position.

What happened?

Cynics might say that the Mariners weren’t that solid anyway, what with their negative run differential and lack of a potent offense.

But this team rose to 11 games over .500 despite those issues, offering up a solid starting rotation, clutch hitting, outstanding defense and a lights-out bullpen.

That combination allowed them to win close games and be absolutely lethal if they produced any offense at all — as in, 55-19 in games when they scored four or more runs.

Unfortunately, the lightly regarded Kansas City Royals came to town and blew all that to pieces.

They should have been warned, since the Royals arrived having won seven of 10 — including three of four from Houston.

BUT STILL ...

You wouldn’t imagine that Kansas City, with a bullpen ranked dead last in the major leagues, could come to town and reel off wins in those same sort of games the Mariners have dominated all season.

You especially wouldn’t have imagined it against a team with a one-man offense.

Yet the Mariners kept throwing strikes to Salvador Perez, and he kept hitting them out of the yard.

Not a good plan.

So now, even with a consolation victory on Sunday, Seattle sits 1 1/2 games behind Oakland and, even more crucially, 4 1/2 behind the Red Sox in the scrap for that last wild-card spot.

Larger deficits than that have been overcome, of course, but the Mariners have an even bigger problem — and the lost weekend against the Royals showed it off to the world.

Two of Seattle’s five current starters have collapsed completely, and might as well be throwing batting practice.

Yusei Kikuchi and Logan Gilbert each blew four-run leads to open the Kansas City series, and frankly, neither looks capable of escaping a funk that’s lasted for several starts.

YOU CAN see how a slump like this could happen to the rookie Gilbert, since he’s had struggles establishing secondary pitches to go with his excellent fastball.

Experiments with a slider and changeup haven’t worked, at least not yet, and unless you’re Nolan Ryan, you can’t survive throwing all heaters.

Major league hitters – Salvador Perez, for instance — are going to turn some of those fastballs around unless they have to worry, just a little bit, about seeing something else.

Gilbert is ultimately going to be a star if he stays healthy, but he’s probably a year (and another pitch) away from winning consistently.

Kikuchi is a more baffling case, and one that may never be solved.

Now 30 years old, Yusei is in the third season of a five-year deal, and despite a live arm and obvious talent, he has never been able to maintain any rhythm or effectiveness.

In 65 career starts for the Mariners, he has a 15-22 record with an ERA of 4.97.

IT TRULY looked like Kikuchi might have found the answers this year, but now he’s reverted to his mystery phase.

In that crucial first game against the Royals, he gave up just one hit in five scoreless innings as the Mariners jumped out to a 4-0 lead — then proceeded to surrender a run and leave the bases loaded with nobody out in the sixth (setting the stage for reliever Joe Smith to give up the game-changing grand slam to Perez).

Kikuchi didn’t look as though he MIGHT get anyone out in the sixth, with pitches that either were screaming “Hit me!” — or bouncing in the dirt.

Yusei has taken to using a bizarre windup with no one on base, pausing to stand on one leg like a flamingo before winging the ball (sorry!) toward the plate.

When he’s sharp — and there are no baserunners — he can look unhittable, but with so many things necessary for everything to work, ah ...

Ka-boom!

I have no earthly idea what the Mariners and their various instructors can do with Kikuchi over the next two years, but this team could be a serious playoff contender next year, and could certainly use Yusei’s 98 mile-per-hour fastball and crackling cutter.

If only ...

Meanwhile, I’m afraid they’re a couple of starters short of breaking the playoff drought this time around.

Flamingoes need not apply.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published monthly during the offseason.