The Seattle Mariners will look to close out April on a strong note with a six-game road trip that begins with a three-game set against the St. Louis Cardinals, which starts at 5:15 p.m. PT on Friday at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

The Mariners will enter that series coming off an day-off that followed a stretch of 13 consecutive games without one.

Seattle ended up finishing that stretch at 7-6 and the heart of the M's lineup significantly improved compared to the start of the season.

However, the stretch wasn't without its down moments. Chief among them was a 7-6 loss to the San Diego Padres on April 15 in which the Mariners two-time All-Star closer Andres Munoz allowed five earned runs in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Following the loss, and subsequent performances from the bullpen, many fans expressed their frustration at the bullpen's situation.

Several fans called out the offseason plan, which didn't see them add multiple arms into the 'pen.

The Mariners made one significant move pertaining to the back-end of the bullpen and brought in left-handed pitcher Jose A. Ferrer in return for top 100 catching prospect Harry Ford in a trade with the Washington Nationals.

The performance against the Padres and Ferrer's early struggles in the season led to a lot of public frustration from fans. But, in a recent episode of the "Refuse to Lose" podcast, hosted by Roundtable Sports' Brady Farkas, ESPN insider Buster Olney seemed confident the team's bullpen "issues" will resolve themselves.

"The easiest issue to fix on the fly is bullpen," Olney said."And it also reflects part of the gamble, when you pick up a guy like (Jose A. Ferrer). When they made that trade, I talked to folks on other teams — "Yep, talent. Yep, good.' But man, the volatility of relievers.' I'm sure that for general managers, they feel like Wall Street stock traders because you don't know exactly what's going to happen with those stocks from day-to-day. It can go up and it can go down and Ferrer can look terrible right now and then in three months he could turn out to be a lot better and more of what they envisioned later on. So, I think they did fine in what they added during the offseason."

To reflect Olney's point, Ferrer has significantly improved over his last seven appearances. He's allowed just one earned run in his last seven outings and pitched two scoreless innings in Seattle's 5-4 win against the Athletics on Wednesday.

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