Would the Mariners please make up their minds?

I need to ask for your forgiveness. I wasn't exactly truthful in my last post.

Yes, it's true that I was busy, but the reality is that it just doesn't take that long to write these things. The honest truth is, with the end of the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup Finals, the only thing left to write about was the Mariners.

Ah, yes -- the Mariners. The bane of my existence as a Seattle sports fan.

As they were tearing through the month of June, making the NL West look like a bunch of AAA teams, I just couldn't bring myself to jump on the bandwagon. Was I excited? Sure. But I just couldn't resist the feeling that the other shoe was going to drop at some point.

And drop it has.

I suppose the Mariners don't need me to tell them that coming back to fired up fan base and promptly losing 5 of 6 -- including two shutouts and an extremely unimpressive sweep at the hands of the last place Angels -- isn't a good thing. And I know that this team probably was playing well above it's collective head and that a bump in the road was inevitable.

Yet I wonder how a team possibly could have worse timing. With football still in the distance and the Sonics drafting yet another 7-footer nobody has ever heard of, this town was ready to jump on board. All it would have taken was a strong showing in the first six games against less than stellar competition.

Instead, they arrived with a resounding thud.

If they can somehow take 2 of 3 from the Tigers and head into the break with some recaptured momentum, I might feel good about our second-half chances. Sweep, and I'll really be fired up. But anything less than that and I'll be resigned to the fact that they don't really have what it takes to compete down the stretch.

And I'll be forced to begin the countdown to Seahawks training camp. (Twenty-three days away ... but who's counting?)