McClendon confident, but can Mariners really turn it around?

As soon as I sat down in Lloyd McClendon’s office Tuesday, he launched into a heartfelt state-of-the-Mariners address, essentially saying, “remain calm, all is well.”

“Because of the expectations on this club, you’d think the world was coming to an end,” McClendon said. “We’ll be fine. I’ve got a good club. You can tell everyone the world is not coming to an end.”

Well, there you have it.

McClendon was not nearly as composed during the third inning of the Mariners’ 5-3 loss to the Yankees, getting ejected and ranting at three of the four umpires after a pair of checked swings by Brett Gardner and Alex Rodriguez were not called strikes.

But pregame, he was Cool Hand Mac, and his outlook was not about to change even after closer Fernando Rodney blew his third save in an 11-inning defeat.

The Mariners, in the view of their manager, have played poorly in every phase of the game, yet are only four games under .500. They can’t hit, two of their starting pitchers are injured and their record is just two games worse than it was at the same point last season, when they nearly made the playoffs with 87 wins.

I want to believe McClendon. I was one of many who liked general manager Jack Zduriencik’s offseason additions, not just Nelson Cruz, but also Seth Smith, Justin Ruggiano and Rickie Weeks. Still, the Mariners are on pace to score 595 runs – 39 fewer than last season, even though Cruz is tied for the major-league lead with 18 homers.

Huh?

The advanced metrics, at least, offer encouragement – the Mariners are first in the majors in hard-hit percentage and 25th in batting average on balls in play (BABIP), powerful evidence they are hitting into poor luck.

“Our analytics department, they remind me of that every day,” McClendon said. “I understand the ‘expected,’ what should have happened, what could have happened. Unfortunately, I’ve got to deal in reality. We’ve got to somehow find a way to turn it around.”

Fangraphs projects that the Mariners will improve from their current 3.67 runs per game to 4.09 the rest of the season, banking on a regression from Cruz, but improvement from players such as Robinson Cano, Austin Jackson and the forever struggling Dustin Ackley.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

The last time the Mariners had an above-average major-league offense was 2007, when their lineup included Ichiro, Adrian Beltre and Raul Ibanez. They ranked in the bottom five in runs from 2008 to ’12, improved to 22nd in ’13 and tied for 18th in ’14.

Yes, the M’s have been unlucky this season – Cano, for example, is well above the major-league average in hard-hit percentage, yet batting only .249 with a .627 OPS. On Monday night, he drilled a ball that resulted in a 4-6-3 double play, then muttered to first-base coach Chris Woodward, “All year, man.”

Cano is Cano — he’ll recover. Cruz and Kyle Seager already are performing at high levels. But what about Ackley and Mike Zunino, former first-round picks — and high first-round picks at that — whom the M’s rushed to the majors?

What about all of the young players who have yet to show they know how to win, the complementary pieces who simply might not be good enough?

“It’s frustrating,” third-base coach Rich Donnelly said. “We’re waiting, waiting, waiting. We keep thinking it’s going to happen. We’ve got the guys to do it.”

In the middle of the order, anyway.

Heck, even the Mariners’ low BABIP must be viewed with a degree of skepticism – their BABIP routinely was below the major-league average from 2008 to ’14, and their luck didn’t exactly even out in those seasons.

It’s not simply poor luck when it’s June and the M’s rank 27th in on-base percentage, 29th in batting average with runners in scoring position and 27th in runs per game, ahead of only the White Sox and Phillies.

Sure the Mariners will get better, if only because they can’t get worse. Fangraphs even lists their playoff odds at 38.6 percent, projecting that the Astros will regress on the pitching side, increasing their runs allowed per game from 3.83 to 4.23.

Sounds reasonable, and the M’s could again evolve into a pitching-and-defense paragon once Hisashi Iwakuma and James Paxton rejoin the rotation. Problem is, the rest of the division is not static.

The Astros are going to promote top shortstop prospect Carlos Correa and acquire a starting pitcher. The Angels finally are starting to hit and could trade for more offense. The Rangers await the returns of several injured starting pitchers and intend to pursue bullpen help — and uh, did you see Joey Gallo’s major-league debut Tuesday night?

McClendon is right — the world is not coming to an end for the Mariners. But this was supposed to be a season in which the team entered a new world, if not the World Series. And that world still seems quite far away.