Felix Hernandez gave up two runs on the Fourth of July and lost, because the Mariners scored zero runs. While it’s easy to say that, at this point in his career, Hernandez should know better than to allow any runs, it’s also a stupid thing to say. Instead, I’ll say that the Mariners' lineup sure is underwhelming in a very Mariners kind of way.

In fact, the Mariners have been underwhelming this season by any standard. Problems are present across the roster: Fernando Rodney has failed to anchor the bullpen, Robinson Cano is playing like Joey Cora, Mike Trumbo has somehow made an offensively inept squad of corner outfielders worse, and injuries have beset an otherwise strong starting rotation.

These were the sort of risks that were inherent to the Mariners roster construction strategy (which involved pairing a couple big free agents with kids who had yet to prove themselves), and while it’s unfortunate that the season is playing out like it has thus far, with each of these you kind of have to shrug and go, “well, it’s Mariners baseball.” So I don’t want to talk about any of the shrug-inducing ways the Mariners have been bad.

Nope.

I want to talk about the epic catastrophe that is backup catcher Jesus Sucre. Because holy shit. HOLY SHIT. Guys. Have you noticed what Sucre has done this year? Let’s do this bullet-points style:

• Jesus Sucre has one hit this year. He’s started 10 games, gotten 24 plate appearances. He has one hit.

• Jesus Sucre’s one hit was an infield single.

• When Jesus Sucre has made contact, he has hit an infield fly ball 25 percent of the time.

• Jesus Sucre has also struck out in 25% of his at bats.

• Jesus Sucre is batting .040.

• Does Jesus Sucre have any walks? No. Come on.

• wRC+ is an advanced metric used to represent a player's offensive output on a scale where 100 is average. Jesus Sucre’s wRC+ is -90. -90! For comparison Chone Figgins’ disastrous 2011, when he was worth -1.2 WAR, saw him post a wRC+ of 37. Sucre is so bad that the distance between him and Figgins’ worst year is akin to the distance between that Figgins year and an average Edgar Martinez year.

• Jesus Sucre is cheap, earning $467,554 dollars this year, or put another way, incredibly expensive, as he’s earning $467,554 per hit registered thus far this year.

• Jesus Sucre’s performance prorated over 500 at bats would make him worth -100 runs versus an average major league hitter. This is essentially like subtracting Mike Trout from a baseball team in 500 at bats. Sucre’s symbol was a fish. Mike Trout shares a name with a fish. Jesus Sucre might be the anti-christ.

• The one time Jesus Sucre reached base, he scored. Runs are a dumb statistic.

• Jesus Sucre’s batting average is less than one-third that of Randy Johnson’s career batting average. Randy Johnson was a pitcher.

• Pedro Martinez’s 1999 season is the greatest by a pitcher in baseball history. Batters put up a slash line (BA/OBP/SLG) of .161/.201/.230 against him. Or as I now think of it, an average hitter against the best pitcher in baseball history was four times more likely to get a hit than Jesus Sucre.

• New Mariners hitting coach Edgar Martinez has nightmares about Jesus Sucre’s swing.

• Jesus Sucre is somehow not the most disappointing catcher named Jesus in the Mariners organization.

All of this is not to pick on Jesus Sucre. Well, it kind of is, but it's also to get at a larger point. Baseball rosters are fragile, and when a team’s talent pool has been fallow for as long as the Mariners’ has been, there are still holes even when things look good. So much has to go right for a team to turn its performance around, and while that should be able to happen at any moment, something as dumb as a backup catcher hitting like you or I would if given the chance can be enough to derail everything.

There was really no reason to expect that Sucre pressed into limited duty would be this bad this year. He wasn’t this bad last year, and he’s at his presumptive peak at 27. This is also an obviously small sample size of badness. But man has he been bad, and that badness can be undone.

Remember, the Mariners missed the playoffs by one game last year. At his current very limited usage rate, and in spite of his defense, Sucre could be worth -1 wins (which is staggering… -1 wins in 50 at bats!). If the shrug-worthy Mariners listed above get hot as they very well could, that one win could be the difference between a wild card berth or another disappointing season. And boy howdy, would that be the most Mariners way to miss the playoffs.