Per Jayson Stark,
MLB -- How 'available' Ubaldo Jimenez of Colorado Rockies, Hunter Pence of Houston Astros, James Shields of Tampa Bay Rays really are -- Rumblings and Grumblings - ESPN2. The Mariners are chasing history, but not the kind any team wants to make. Nearly 100 games into the season, the batting average of their whole team is (gulp) .223. So unless they start mashing, they're going to obliterate the record for worst average by an AL team in the DH era. That record, if you want to get technical, is .226, by Otto Velez's 1981 Blue Jays. But that was a strike year. So if you count only full seasons, the Mariners have almost no shot to avoid that record -- which is .235, by Tony Solaita's 1976 Angels. To beat that, the Mariners would have to hit about .255 the rest of the way. And don't bet your family Space Needle pass on that. Of the nine position players on the roster with more than 100 at-bats, six of them are hitting .229 or lower.
3. Oh, and one more thing: The Mariners are rampaging along with a pathetic .288 on-base percentage. So that means they're about to become the first AL team to rack up on-base percentages under .300 in back-to-back seasons since the 1966-67-68 White Sox, Senators and Indians did it three years in a row, before the mound was lowered to prevent offensive abominations like this.