With playoff hopes dashed, Mariners’ season is reduced to a search for positives

Felix Hernandez winning 20 games for the first time in his career would be a nice accomplishment in an otherwise disappointing season for the Mariners. (AP)

Pretty soon, if we’re not there already, this is what we’ll be down to – keeping track of individual accomplishments with the Mariners.

For instance, today is a Happy Felix Day, which is good because it follows Unhappy Hisashi Day, and I don’t think anyone hash-tagged that one after the Mariners lost 8-4 to Arizona Tuesday night after Iwakuma was roughed up.

With Felix at 12-5, we’ll be watching to see if he can get to 20 wins for the first time in his career. With 61 games remaining, he has 12 or 13 starts left to get eight wins. Think he’ll make it?

And there will probably be some type of Nelson Cruz Home Run Watch, wondering if he’ll match the 40 he hit last year.

This is what I’m down to – hoping we get to see Fernando Rodney shoot one more arrow before he leaves town, and hoping Jesus Montero is promoted soon.

As much as I want to cling to glimmers of hope, the Mariners are more terrible than terrific, and consequently have no shot whatsoever anymore. Think about it. They’re 46-55. Last year it took 88 wins to get a wild-card playoff berth. To get to 88 wins from their current hole, they’d have to go 42-19. Just to get to 81-81, they’d have to go 35-26. Neither is going to happen.

So I suppose in the next two days, we’ll see if the Mariners make a deal to somehow improve their unrealistic chances when everyone knows they should be selling veterans and acquiring prospects.

Knowing the Mariners, they’ll probably play a little better down the stretch, not a lot better, which means they’ll worsen their draft position without making the playoffs. There will also be players who perform well in August and September, giving us hope that they can carry the momentum into 2016.

But I’ll say this about that: I don’t want those guys on the 2016 team. If they couldn’t do it under pressure in April, May, June and July, I’m not interested in their numbers when it doesn’t really matter.

In the meantime, I’ll keep Tweeting daily Montero updates until he’s called up for good. Know how ridiculous this has gotten? Montero went 3 for 4 with a triple Tuesday night and is now 9 for his last 15 with Tacoma. He’s averaging .343 for the season.

Meanwhile, Logan Morrison is hitting .157 in his last 30 games, and I get this feeling that everyone generally likes him, but truth is, he’s not that good aside from those streaky spurts of his that we haven’t seen for awhile.

And Mark Trumbo, the first baseman Tuesday night, I know he’s been hitting pretty well the last two weeks, but boy did he butcher that foul pop-up against the Diamondbacks. That was a Little League gaffe all the way. He didn’t come within 5 feet of the ball as it landed on the grass. Montero would have caught that ball, and if he didn’t, he would’ve at least gotten a glove on it.

Again, as I’ve said before, why not give it a shot? At this point, your best trade-deadline move is promoting Montero yet the Mariners will say they don’t have room for him because they already have LoMo and Trumbo and some other ridiculous reason to justify keeping a legitimate potential spark in Triple-A.

And one more time for good measure, if Montero struggles in the big leagues, so what?! The season’s shot anyway. But what if he produces? What if you add that to a lineup featuring Cruz, Kyle Seager and a rejuvenated Robinson Cano and Mike Zunino?

See what I said about those glimmers of hope?