Disaster (narrowly) averted

The Mariners allowed a total of 14 runs over the four games they played against the Oakland Geographically Dislocated Athletics.

That matches the fewest runs the Mariners have allowed in the first four games of any of the past seven seasons.

That’s the half-full perspective.

Unfortunately, Seattle only scored 10 runs in these first four games against the Geographically Dislocated Athletics, which matches their lowest total after four games in any of the past nine years.

That would be the half-empty view.

Because while Julio Rodriguez hit an absolute moon blast of a home run in the seventh inning on Sunday, hanging a hell of a smile at the end of the weekend, that couldn’t totally obscure the larger fear that’s hanging over this particular team.

Namely: The Mariners have an absolutely 24-carat starting rotation, and it might not be sufficient to offset the two-bit offense that’s currently in place.

Seattle is 2-2 after four games, which sounds about right given everything we saw.

In four games, Seattle’s starting pitchers yielded a combined total of seven runs, which is really good. Unfortunately, the Mariners scored only three runs off the A’s starters in those four games, which is kind of pathetic if we’re being honest.

But what’s it that baseball folks always say? It’s early. Yes. It’s early, and watching Randy Arozarena clobber a game-tying homer on Thursday night was really fun and seeing Rodriguez clobber the game-winner on Sunday was downright electrifying.

So maybe this opening weekend isn’t actually a sign of things to come.

Next up: Three games versus Detroit, which finished a game ahead of the Mariners last season and earned the sixth and final berth in the playoffs. The Tigers are 0-3, having lost three games in Los Angeles to the defending champion Dodgers.

I have discovered — over the past five years — that people in New York have very little idea what it’s like in the rest of the country. This is — I suppose — a testament to just how all-encompassing this city is for the people who live in it. It also makes them exceptionally naive in some respects.

New Yorkers truly have no idea what it’s like to root for a team like the Mariners. I wrote about that in my weekly column for The News Tribune.

• All it costs is a chunk of your self-respect

  By Danny O’Neil | The News Tribune

After seven years of litigation it is understandable why a big-shot investor named Bill Ackman was fed up with a (much richer) big-shot investor named Carl Icahn.

You might even go so far as to say that Ackman was justified in delivered a point-blank profanity when Icahn suggested they might work together in the future.

That would wind up costing Ackman quite a bit, however, as I look at this feud as part of my ongoing exploration of the dark art of staying mad.

• The billion-dollar grudge

  By Danny O’Neil