The one word that best describes the career of Joe Saunders is solid. He’s an eight-year MLB veteran who has an average career stat line, but has always given his team a chance to win ballgames. In his glory days with the Los Angeles Angels, he won 33 games over two seasons, a stretch in which almost every number he posted was completely average. He has never struck out more than 114 batters in a season, allows 1.38 base runners per inning and has a career ERA of 4.21. The fact that he averages 6.13 innings per start supports the claim that for all intents and purposes, Saunders’ career is the epitome of a borderline quality start.

In a career defined by solid mediocrity, Saunders is having himself an anomaly of a season so far in 2013. Quite simply, he is a Cy Young candidate when he pitches at Safeco Field, but on the road he couldn’t buy a win even with a more lucrative contract than Albert Pujols’.

In the DVR age, there’s a rule of thumb: Be cautious when looking at tickers like ESPN’s bottom line. If you’re recording a game – keeping yourself in the past in a way – you don’t want to transport yourself ahead to the future and ruin the surprise.

As far as Major League Baseball is concerned, I’ve been on pause for the last decade. So when I flipped on Sportscenter the other night it wasn’t a huge surprise at first when I saw this flash across the bottom line: MLB: Ibanez blasts 2 HRs as SEA routs NYY.

It was at this very instant I realized I am nothing more than the most casual of baseball fans nowadays.

10. John Olerud

Despite spending just over four seasons with Seattle Mariners, Olerud became an instant fan-favorite with his friendly personality and even-keel mentality on the field. He hit over .300 twice for the M’s while taking home three gold gloves and appearing in the 2001 all-star game that featured eight Mariners.

9. Dan Wilson

The trusty backstop gets on the list by virtue of his 12-year tenure with the Mariners. Wilson’s best season offensively came in 1996 when he hit .285 with 18 home runs and 83 RBI and made his sole all-star game appearance. Wilson was brilliant behind the plate, posting a career fielding percentage of .995, the sixth-best in major league history.

The Seattle Mariners starting rotation needs help. They’re hurting. Other than Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma, the rotation has been awful.

Here is a look at what their other starters have done.

Brandon Maurer – 2 wins and 4 losses with a 6.07 ERA in 6 starts.

Joe Saunders – 2 wins and 4 losses with a 6.15 ERA in 7 starts.

*Aaron Harang – 1 win and 4 losses with a 7.30 ERA in 5 starts.

*Harang, who was traded twice within a week, was brought in after a rough start from Blake Beavan … only to have a similar start. Beavan started twice this season. He recorded 1 loss with no wins in the two games and had an ERA of 8.44 before Harang took over his spot in the rotation. Okay, maybe Harang is slightly better.

Seattle Mariners fans haven’t had much to cheer about over the past decade. Since 2003, the M’s have only had three winning seasons, finished higher than third in the A.L. West just twice and failed to make a postseason appearance. In 2008, Seattle lost 101 games and although an 85-77 finish the following season appeared to be a positive step in the right direction, an Enron-esque downward turn had Seattle’s loss column right back in the triple-digits in 2010.

There was a time that Seattle boasted a mix of a core of top prospects with a crew of veteran leaders that had them playing the best baseball in franchise history. Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez taking the game by storm, Randy Johnson’s impossibly super-fastball (in Major League Baseball with Ken Griffey Jr., a 1998 Nintendo 64 video game, Johnson had not only a fastball, but a “super-fastball”), Jamie Moyer’s complementarily slow changeup, and the stoic figures of Edgar Martinez, John Olerud and Dan Wilson were the prime reasons the Northwest was baseball’s biggest fan in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Griffey left and broke a lot of hearts along the way, but Ichiro entered wearing Superman’s cape, sweeping up sunken spirits out of midair and providing a new icon for M’s fans to fall in love with all over again.

With a 12-17 record, the Seattle Mariners have had a sordid start, but there are still optimistic hopes that these all-stars will band together and create something magical. While the Mariners lost yesterday's game, 7-2, the M's were still in competition for the most hits with 10, meaning that the spark is alive. We’re just waiting for all the matchsticks to alight! After all, there are 162 games in a season, and there have been signs of majesty.

On Monday, the boys in blue defeated the hot Baltimore Orioles, 6-2, with left-handed starter (and former Oriole), Joe Saunders pitching his first complete game in a year. Last night, we also welcomed back another Saunders, Michael, and he ended up hitting a home run in the Mariners first at-bat for the win. It was good to have his presence back on the field, as he is someone full of energy. With our other center fielder Franklin Gutierrez out, again, with another injury, the “cleated gazelle” was welcomed home on the fresh green grass and at the top of the order. The Los Angeles Angels have Peter Bourjos; we have Saunders!

So, the good thing is that the Seattle Mariners are doing worse this year than they did last year. You ask, how is that a good thing?

Well, the thing is, us fans don’t want to get high hopes. If we do, they are usually dashed, severely and, you know, perfect games don’t last forever … they only come 23 times every 100 years or so. We will depend on variety, newness, the unexpected … those are always good. It’s 2013, baby!

That’s what I’m saying; this will be a completely new season. I was in a groove last year, I was in a groove during Spring Training; it seemed that everything was going peachy keen. We picked up wonderful new players stacked with talent and vibrancy. However, we did lose a power punch in John Jaso and now, sorely and sadly, Casper Wells is gone. A tear. Our record is currently 6-9.

Good movie, bad precursor is what we’ve come accustomed to regarding Seattle Mariners baseball.

The Seattle Mariners baseball club has spent the better part of the last few seasons dinking and dunking their way to subpar results, diminishing attendance, and waning interest in a market on the verge of adding more competition.  They already love their Seahawks, Sounders, and it appears the Sonics are a formality away from a second act in a city they once owned.  So “desperate times” may be an understated way of summing-up the state of a franchise floundering at sea.

The highlight of the season for the struggling Mariners took place Wednesday night. No moment at Safeco Field – save a Felix Hernandez perfect game – will top this catch. To paraphrase the folks at Grantland, there is just so much amazing going on in this clip. Allow me to walk you through it and explain why this is the greatest play you will see at a Seattle Mariners game in the 2013 season.

Let’s start with the obvious: The guy caught a ball in a beer. That’s insane. Your average solo cup has a diameter of about four inches. A baseball’s diameter is about three inches. Just tossing a ball across the room and trying to get it into a cup would be a challenge. This guy managed to catch a foul ball from a Major Leaguer inside his cup while there was still beer in it.

The baseball season is settling into its second week. It’s early, but not too early to recognize that Major League Baseball has a problem. Competitive balance in Major League Baseball has become a joke, to the detriment to everyone who loves the game. The Houston Astros are proof of that theorem, and the Seattle Mariners can also be used to illustrate Commissioner Bud Selig’s gross negligence in managing our national pastime.

Let’s begin with the numbers, shall we? There’s one set that practically makes my argument for me. Yankees 3B Alex Rodriguez ($29 million) and 22 other players in MLB will make more this season than the Astros’ entire Opening Day roster ($18.7 million). There’s no logical or reasonable explanation for such a disparity. More importantly, that it’s allowed to happen is an indictment of Selig’s incompetence and mismanagement.