This story was excerpted from Daniel Kramer's Mariners Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SEATTLE -- The Mariners returned from the East Coast on Sunday night, trying to take some solace in knowing that they played better baseball than their 2-4 record on trips to New York and Baltimore showed.

But in the results-based business of baseball, they arrived at T-Mobile Park for their final homestand before the All-Star break finding themselves further behind than when they left. The Mariners are 4 1/2 games back from the third and final AL Wild Card spot, with three teams in between.

“I think we are, I do,” manager Scott Servais said when asked if he felt the team was playing better. “People say it's crazy, whatever. I don't care. I'm looking at our team. I live with our team every day. I do think we did not start off the road trip very well. I thought starting with the last game in New York, we did play better, but we've got to keep it rolling. And ultimately, it's about winning games.”

If it feels like the Mariners have hovered around .500 all season, it’s because they have, sitting within three games above, below or even since May 2. They’ve only twice fallen to four games under and have yet to get to four games in the green. It’s been middle-ground all year, which -- in a year of expectations -- is probably what’s led to the most frustration outside the clubhouse.

“We need to turn it around,” said catcher Cal Raleigh who crushed a dramatic homer in Sunday’s series finale. “We know we're better than what we're playing [at]. It's been 70-something games. We need to pick it up a little bit, especially on the offensive side. We're really scuffling and I think we just need to have better team at-bats.”

This incredibly long season won’t even be half over until Saturday, meaning there is still ample time to get going. That said, in the tiers of this 162-game marathon, the Mariners are in the thick of the "evaluation" phase. Focus will soon turn to the Trade Deadline season, which will lead to grander questions of whether they’ll buy or sell come Aug. 1.

“I'm hopeful that as we get to the break and are able to reset ourselves here, in a couple of weeks that we come out on the other side of this in close proximity to .500 with a chance to have a better second half once we change our focus,” president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said last week on his radio hit with Seattle Sports. “Because I think we need it.”

Yet, this stretch leading into the break is arguably just as vital to the scope of how they approach the Deadline. Seattle opened a three-game series against Washington, which has the fewest wins in the National League, but after that, its schedule into the break features AL-leading Tampa Bay (54-27) then trips to San Francisco (44-34) and Houston (42-36).

That’s notable given that the Mariners entered this week just 14-28 (.333) against winning teams compared to 23-11 (.676) against those under .500, and they’re 16-22 on the road this year.

“This is really important,” Raleigh said. “Every game is important. Obviously, early in the season, nobody wants to panic. Everybody understands we have a lot of games left. And we still do. We're not going to freak out or anything, but at the same time, we want to get going. You want to start playing better as a team.”

Their schedule coming out of the break isn’t much lighter. They have Detroit (33-43), Minnesota (40-39) twice, Toronto (43-36) and Arizona (47-32) leading into the Deadline. So even though they’ll have two months left once the trade season ends, this stretch leading into that point will be critical -- because Dipoto’s front office has shown that it’ll react to where things stand, whether it’s buying, selling or in between.

“We're still a fairly young team by the standards of this league, and there's still enough season to do the things that we need to do to right the wrongs that we took, to turn the ship around,” Dipoto said. “But at the end of the day, it's going to require focus.

“And right now, we are distracted, young players. We are veterans who are not having great years that are trying to figure out how to get back to their norms. And we've talked about it before, when that's happening collectively, it's hard to find the stabilizing voice in the middle of the room -- because everybody's focus might be on something different than just the outcome of the game that night.”