The Mariners are winning baseball games, and I hardly know what to think of it.

Could it be true? Are they a quality team?

The starting rotation has lived up to the preseason hype, the bullpen has been surprisingly stellar and the offense is scoring runs.

Even with the offseason additions of Nori Aoki, Leonys Martin and Chris Ianetta all failing to hit .230, Seattle is third in the American League in scoring.

The team can really thank Robinson Cano.

After just over a month of the season, Cano is the clear leader in the MVP race. This comes on the heels of one of the worst seasons in his career.

He had his worst season in almost every single major hitting category since 2008. It’s hard to call .287/334/446 with 21 home runs a bad year, but $24 million warrants more than 79 RBI in a season and only six home runs and 30 RBI at the All-Star Break.

Cano passed those All-Star Break totals from last year on April 26 and his RBI total on May 7.

After Cano’s disappointing first half of the season last year, he finished on a tear. Cano hit .331 after the All-Star Break with 15 home runs and 49 RBI, but it was too little too late. The Mariners were dead in the water by the end of July.

The team missed the playoffs, and general manager Jack Zduriencik was fired. He was replaced by Jerry Dipoto, and most of the staff under the Zduriencik regime was fired.

That led former first base and outfielders coach Andy Van Slyke to tell CBS Sports 920 AM in St. Louis some interesting thoughts on Cano.

“In Seattle, we had [Nelson] Cruz, who was probably the most dominant hitter that I’ve ever personally seen for four months and Cano hitting in front of him. So you would think that Cano would have had a terrific year. But he had probably the worst single year of an everyday player that I’ve ever seen in 20 years at the big league level,” Van Slyke said in the radio interview. “He was just the most awful player I’ve ever seen.”

He blamed Cano for the firing of the staff, questioned his work ethic and even discredited the hiring of hitting coach Edgar Martinez.

This coming from a guy who watched Dustin Ackley and Justin Smoak on a daily basis. He was a disgruntled employee and let the world know what he thought.

Cano didn’t have much to say in response.

“Honestly it didn’t hurt me,” Cano told the AP. “I’m not going to waste my time and say anything back.”

The Mariners should thank Van Slyke. Not for the coaching he did, but for the fire he possibly lit under Cano this offseason.

If he keeps up his hot hitting, he could win his first-career MVP award.

Cano is not going to stay on the 60-plus home run pace he is on right now, but the .301 batting average he had going into Wednesday is maintainable. As a matter of fact, he could be hitting much higher than that by the end of the season.

Even with Nelson Cruz’s unreal start to last season, the Mariners couldn’t get off the ground without Cano producing.

This year, Cruz isn’t hitting the cover off the ball, and until recently Seager had been pretty abysmal at the plate, but somehow the offense is still scoring runs—thanks to Cano.

Cruz and Seager are great, but Cano is the straw that stirs the drink in the Mariners’ lineup.