Rarely have the sailors been a team that makes good things seem to come naturally. We all want good things to come naturally, of course. They seem to come very naturally to other people and other teams.
The feeling, which isn’t a particularly good feeling (as sentiments go), comes up frequently while browsing social media, or while listening to someone explain their exploits. You’ll see someone who just bought a house, or you hear someone talk about the promotion they just registered for, and that feeling comes through. Call it envy, resentment, or jealousy: it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, it’s a horrific tingling as your brain tries to convince you that something might be serious and intrinsic to you, causing these things to not be achieved.
Of course, this feeling does not hold up after a few seconds of clear thought. You see the new home on social media, but you don’t see the 7% 30-year mortgage. upgrade sounds Great, but the 70-hour workweeks don’t sound great.
The problem is that this analogy doesn’t quite work when you’re trying to apply it to sailors. Believe me: I’ve tried every cognitive gymnast in the book to try and justify how Mariners fans will start to bring in returns on my investment. Oh, those other teams had to spend $200 million to win the World Championship. Not my money. Well, well, they had to tanks in order to get there. Sure, but they got there.
The adaptation shifted inland as the sailors advanced more and more in the rankings. The strength of their schedule was really tough! Their xwOBA was way above wOBA overall! The bulls will flip it over! etc., etc.
This month was the initial test for the first assertion: that sailors will look better when they start playing worse competition. Unfortunately, it wasn’t great against the Oakland A team last week, as the Mariners dropped the series to their miserable Bay-area rivals.
This series, then, was bound to be won by any stretch of the imagination. Injuries be damned – if the team can’t beat the Orioles who live in a permanent vault, they probably won’t go to places this season.
After winning Game One, yesterday’s meltdown turned into a rubbery game that may have seemed like a joke to most Major League Baseball, but felt urgent importance for its ramifications for Jerry DePoto’s (if only) next team status title.
It didn’t start out great. Jesse Winker cost the TOOTBLAN Mariners a first-half run, and Chris Flexen continued a troubling stretch of middle leadership as he let down a streak of singles that gave the Orioles a 2-0 lead.
Thank God, Mariners discount I was Baltimore Freakin Orioles, after all. Taylor Trammell continued his brilliant start to his season with a double to lead the third inning, and Winker’s solo brought him home. Later, with Luis Torrens at third base, Julio Rodriguez showed his speed again as he stole second place and imposed a throwing foul that allowed Torrens to score, tying the match with a score of 2-2.
More singles and lousy doubles at the bottom of the third made the match 3-2, the Orioles. On that note, it was amazing how different it feels to watch Logan Gilbert, George Kirby or Marco Gonzalez versus watching… any other Mariners pitcher. The Logan/Kirby/Marco experience is fun. Experimenting with any other jug of Milkweat ranges to effective harm to the health of the observer.
Fortunately, M’s finally made up a big run in the sixth inning. Three consecutive singles from Julio, JP Crawford and Eugenio Súarez eventually paved the way for Adam Frazier and Torrens two-RBI singles to put the Mariners ahead 6-3.
Unfortunately, the most frustrating thing about Mariners 2022 was their tendency to blow up leads. Goat Bulls Tonight was Matt Vista, who scored one (1) out hitter, two (2) double hitters, and one (1) double. Fabulous. Paul Sewald was called in to limit damage, but Cedric Mullens’ unfortunate doubling allowed both of his inherited runners to score and tie the match.
Of course, with the game now tied, both bulls are starting to look perfect. Sewald threw another round of pristine relief, and Andres Muñoz did the same. Two amorphous Oriole diluents kept sailors away from the board during nine, and we went on to the extra rounds. As has been the case with every game so far this season, the Mariners’ season was on the line.
Adam Frazier started 10th to the right, allowing Suarez, who played Manfred Runner tonight, to advance to third base. This does not matter. Abraham Torow, who also had a number of perfect plays at third base tonight, broke through the first fastball he saw in deep position.
You may have carried a dead ball less than the 411 feet that this ball carried. Eighteen other baseball fields He was going to let her escape from her walls. But even though it didn’t quite get past the fence, the ball did manage to get past Cedric Mullins’ outstretched gauntlet. The ball bounced off the top of the wall, and veered in midfield far enough for Toro to dip to third base with a three RBI.
Unfortunately, the Mariners were unable to score Toro from third, so the Orioles had their shot in the bottom tenth with Manfred Rahner leveling at second base.
Anyway, it would have been confusing if Diego Castillo hadn’t made his season match yet.
Two sliders, a fastball, and one last slider for Austin Hayes peaked in a swing and failed on the third hit.
Five straight slides ended up on Ryan Mountcastle in exactly the same way.
Adley Rutschman, to his credit, had enough discipline to work 3-0 against Castillo. Castillo fought back though, eventually driving a streak in the shift to shut down the game and stop the obnoxious feud that is Manfred’s runner at second base.
So the Mariners scratched, squashed, and gave everything they could for a 7-6 game win and a 2-1 win over one of the worst teams in the league.
As with any Mariners game, though, it didn’t matter. Gone are my worries about the game’s implications for the rest of the Mariners’ season, or what the match had to say about who the Mariners were as a team. These are thoughts that tend to fester throughout the day, in the hours leading up to the actual match.
No, as Abraham Torow smiled in his post-game interview, I had neither the desire nor the energy to care about the luxurious new homes in which the Dodgers and Mets live, and Ray does not seem to be gifted by nature.
I was, as they say, glad to be here.