The Mariners stand in first place in the NL West, but they are about to enter a very tough part of their schedule:

The quality of Seattle’s start shouldn’t be diminished, yet it hasn’t come against the elite of the American League. Seattle has played the majority of its games against teams with records below .500 as of the start of play Monday. They haven’t seen Boston or the New York Yankees.

So Servais understood when he was asked about the Mariners’ upcoming schedule. Beginning Tuesday, the Mariners play 15 of the next 19 games against Houston, Boston, the Yankees and the Angels.

“We’re exactly where we should be. We’ve played well to this point,” Servais said. “The teams we have coming up — and we talk about everybody looks at their schedule when it comes out, and during spring training, and we need to get off to a good start. And people say you’ve got this pocket here you’re going to be on the road for a while or playing the tough teams in June or July, everybody has got those stretches in their schedule.”

By my calculation, the Mariners played the second easiest schedule in the majors so far, with the average winning percentage of opponents at .471. Only the Tigers at .449 had an easier schedule, and the Tigers are higher in the standings than people expected.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Marlins had the toughest schedule so far, so they might not be as bad as they look.