THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: M's will end playoff drought in 2022 — unless they end it this season

After considerable thought, I agree with Bob Veale.

In case you don’t remember him, Veale was a sturdy big-league starter for more than a decade.

He won 120 games for Pittsburgh and the Red Sox in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Veale was a huge presence in every way, a 6-foot-6 lefty who appeared to be releasing his fastball about halfway to home plate.

One idiosyncrasy I particularly recall was that big Bob occasionally would wipe his forehead with a huge handkerchief, a cloth monstrosity that could have doubled as a tent in any kind of emergency.

Veale also became mildly famous as a keen observer of the game, which once led him to mangle his opinion while attempting to impart a bit of baseball truth.

Veale’s verbal error lived on, long after his career faded into the sunset during the mid-1970s.

Here are Veale’s pearls of wisdom…

“Good pitching will always beat good hitting, and vice-versa.”

NOW, IF you want to look at it from Veale’s point of view, you could claim that he would be correct — no matter what the outcome.

Whichever part of the game prevailed on a given day, Bob accidentally would have nailed it.

So, now you might wonder…

Why are we bringing up Bob Veale (and his imitation of Yogi Berra logic) today, in particular?

Glad you asked.

Fact is, we’re just a little more than two weeks until opening day for MLB, and I want to toss a little wisdom of my own out into the baseball universe.

I have a pretty solid feeling about the 2021 Seattle Mariners, and I’d like to share it.

Also…

Unlike Bob Veale, I WILL take a side in the eternal pitching versus hitting debate.

You’ll know, naturally, that this should be the last season of the Mariners’ “step-back” program – GM Jerry Dipoto’s drastic squad surgery that was designed to make the M’s younger and more talented throughout the organization.

Seattle now has a youthful major-league roster and a farm system that has been ranked as high as second in all of MLB.

OK, fine, you say.

But when can this playoff-starved club begin to seriously sniff the postseason?

I’LL GO with next season for snapping the playoff drought, but I’m not giving up on this year.

Not entirely.

The reason for such optimism — thank you, Bob Veale — is potential on the pitching staff.

With lefty James Paxton back in Seattle and apparently healthy, the M’s actually can could run out a pretty salty rotation.

Marco Gonzales is a bona fide ace, youngsters Justus Sheffield and Justin Dunn both seem to be ascending to solid rotation status, and the inconsistent Yusei Kikuchi seems poised to harness his unquestioned talent.

The Mariners have added Chris Flexen — a whiz in Korea who still remains a question mark back home — to their six-man rotation and, honestly, this group could keep the club contending in what is no longer a scary AL West.

Yep, the revamped bullpen has to hold up, and the young lineup has to score SOME of the time to prevent more of the dreaded “King Felix Syndrome” – you know, characterized by a string of 1-0 and 2-1 defeats.

Dipoto and manager Scott Servais want to keep us focused on 2022 as a target for playoff contention, but the reunion with Paxton could give Seattle an unexpected slice of success this summer.

Maybe we should ask Bob Veale.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball which is published each Tuesday.