The Mariners have been a team predicated on a precise yet tenuous blueprint for success: A strong enough pitching staff, particularly the lockdown bullpen, to compensate for a middling offense.
To make this work requires an efficiency on defense and in the clutch that ensures a preponderance of close victories — a .620 winning percentage in one-run games and .676 in extra innings the past two years.
It's a dangerous way to live — some would say a recipe for regression to the mean. And the early part of this Seattle season has been very mean at times, with an outpouring of many flaws and inadequacies that were feared by some to be lurking beneath a shiny exterior.
