9/29/2013 -- A's 9, Mariners 0

Maybe next year?

8/21/2013 -- Mariners Get A's

You may find this hard to believe, but the Seattle Mariners played a baseball game today. Shocking, right? Ok, fine, you probably find that very easy to believe and not at all shocking. After all, the Mariners have now played 126 games in the past five months, and they have a 35-year track record of playing 162 games every year. To be honest, you would have to be completely insane to be surprised by today’s Mariners game. Sorry, that's not fair of me. I know insanity isn’t the only explanation. You could be some heathen bandwagoner who isn’t very knowledgeable about baseball, but I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, so we’ll stick with insanity. In conclusion, you were either surprised or you weren’t.

That was the introductory paragraph. I’m not going to stop writing, despite the fact that the previous paragraph ended with “in conclusion”, which is a sentence that usually signals that something is, well, concluding. But, as you can see, I’m not too concerned with conforming to standards of “structure” or “content” or "quality" in my writing. This ain’t no book report, this is a discussion of the Seattle Mariners, and the throbbing fiery passion that is the Mariners demands a more freewheeling style. Think of this like a Bruce Springsteen song, except about baseball.

But seriously though, do me a favor and go to espn.com. Mouse over the thing where they show the score of the baseball games, and click on “Recap” next to the Mariners game. I think you’ll find that someone has already written a detailed factual account of the events in this game. Now go to mlb.com and try the same thing. Oh look, somebody wrote about the Mariners game there as well. Now try the Seattle Times. Hey, they wrote about today’s Mariners game too! Now try Googling “seattle mariners blog” and click on one of the many hundreds of results. You’ll find that there are several people out there who have already spewed unreasonable volumes of words about this game.

Did you do that? I’m going to assume that you didn’t, because those were all rhetorical questions and I respect that you’re smart enough to understand that. Or, even if you’re so dumb that you’re currently composing an angry email about my snobbishly affected use of a clearly superfluous letter “h” in the word “rhetoric”, you probably saw that I already told you what you would find, and you didn’t bother checking yourself because the idea of doing your own research and questioning the veracity of what people tell you is utterly alien to you.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, I was about to fulfill the absolutely necessary function of giving you an account of the events of today’s Mariners game. So, here it is: The Mariners beat the Oakland A’s by a score of 5-3, bringing their seasonal record to 59-67 and keeping their odds of making the playoffs at a hearty “< 0.1%”.

Perhaps today’s victory is a sign that things are changing, and the Mariners will beat their foes more often in the future. Perhaps today’s victory is a sign that the Mariners, like all baseball teams, will sometimes win games, as evinced by their 59 wins on the season. Perhaps today’s victory is a sign that Barack Obama is secretly a lizard. A lizard from outer space, hell-bent on devouring the old and also devouring the young, and also cutting taxes on the wealthy. May Xenu have mercy on us all.

8/20/2013 -- Mariners Continue Season

In case you were unaware and don't have any other way to find out: Yes, the Mariners are still playing games.

8/15/2013 -- In-Depth Mariners Analysis

It’s been brought to my attention that my Seattle Mariners articles aren’t very informative. Aren’t very useful. Aren’t very factual. Apparently, I’m not bringing the hard-hitting, in-depth Mariners analysis that you want. That you need. That you crave.

What you want is facts and figures. You want to know what happened yesterday, what’s happening today, and what will happen in the future. You want to know what it all means. What you don’t want is some smartass snarking on and on about so much fluff.

So, I’m going to try something a little different today. Way more information, way more analysis. You like that? Yeah, I bet you do. And I promise you, this won’t be a cruel prank like the last time. I’m not going to mock the very idea of thinking about the Seattle Mariners. I’m not going to waste your time. I would never do that. So, here we go, onward and upward!

SEATTLE MARINERS VERSUS TAMPA BAY RAYS

Top First:

B Miller popped out to first.

This is a bad result. You never want to pop out to first, especially leading off a game.

N Franklin grounded out to shortstop.

            This is a bad result. Grounding out to shortstop is always a mistake.

K Seager hit by pitch

This is a good result. Great job by K Seager to be standing in the way of a fast-moving object.

K Seager stole second.

            This is a good result. It’s better to be on second than on first.

K Seager to third on wild pitch.

            This is a good result. It’s better to be on third than on second.

K Morales singled to center, K Seager scored.

            This is a good result. Scoring runs is one of the keys to victory.

M Morse struck out looking.

            This is a bad result. With two outs already, making an out ends the inning.

Bottom First:

B Zobrist popped out to shortstop.

            This is a good result. You generally want to have the other team make outs.

M Joyce popped out to shortstop.

            This is a good result. He made an out.

E Longoria walked.

This is a bad result. E Longoria is much more likely to score a run now than he would be if he was out.

W Myers struck out swinging.

This is a good result. The other team can't score runs here, because they are out.

Top Second:

J Smoak grounded out to third.

            This is a bad result. It would’ve been better to not ground out here.

M Saunders struck out looking.

            This is a bad result. It’s really hard to score runs when you strike out.

D Ackley struck out swinging.

            This is a bad result. He should've tried not striking out.

Bottom Second:

J Loney grounded out to pitcher.

This is a good result. J Loney plays for the other team, so you want him to ground out to pitcher.

Y Escobar lined out to first.

This is a good result. Incredible finesse by A Harang to guide the liner into a waiting glove.

L Scott struck out swinging.

            This is a good result. It’s good to strike out the other team.

Top Third:

H Quinteo flied out to center.

This is a bad result. If he had it over the outfield wall, that would have been better.

B Miller flied out to center.

This is a bad result. You’d think B Miller would’ve learned not to do this by watching H Quintero’s failure.

N Franklin grounded out to third.

This is a bad result. If he had gotten a hit, it would’ve been much more likely for the Mariners to score runs.

Well, I could go on, but you know what they say about teaching a man to fish. Hopefully, I’ve gifted you with the proper tools to understand the Seattle Mariners better. From this day forward, you too will be able to analyze the Mariners by watching them with your eyes, or by reading about what they did on the internet after the game. It’s a powerful skill, and I hope you use it wisely. Until we meet again… Go Mariners Go!

8/10/2013 -- Mariners Lose Again, Again

The Mariners lost a game yesterday. It was a pretty ugly loss, too, as the Mariners were whomped, thrashed, and mangled by the Milwaukee Brewers to the tune of a 10-5 final score. Making it even more humiliating, the Milwaukee Brewers are a pretty bad baseball team, meaning the Mariners were whomped, thrashed, and mangled by a team they really should have beaten. How did this happen? What can we learn from this?

Below, I’ll discuss all the important and meaningful things that happened in this game, and I’ll also analyze this game for anything that could prove to be significant for the Mariners' fortunes. I hope you like reading, because this is going to be a pretty thorough analysis, really getting into all the nitty-gritty details of everything that a Major League Baseball game entails. Ready? Let’s get to it.

Ok, I think I hit all the important points. The Mariners go again tonight, and here’s hoping they don’t get whomped, thrashed, and mangled this time. That would be nice.

8/6/2013 -- Mariners, Part 113

Well, game 113 is officially in the books, and boy howdy was it a doozy. So many things happened in this game. So, so many things. This game was a veritable sharknado of things happening and events occurring. And, of all the literally hundreds of things that happened in this game, some of them even mattered! Let’s get right on to it with some important factual information about tonight’s Seattle Mariners baseball game.

Where to begin, where to begin? The obvious place to start is the result: the Mariners lost. That’s informative, but not exactly exciting. The Mariners have lost 61 times this year, after all. There’s nothing inherently interesting about one loss out of 61. How about the score? Maybe that’s where today’s game can display its unique specialness, or failing that, its special uniqueness. So, the score: today's final score was 7 to 2. Ouch! Not even close!

So, it was a blowout loss. That’s depressing. Let’s dig into some stats, and see if we can drown our tears in the soothing caress of numbers:

• Prior to the game, the Mariners had a roughly 50 percent chance of victory. The Mariners quickly fell behind, and then quickly fell behind some more. As such, the probability of the Mariners winning the game rapidly fell towards zero. But it didn’t go all the way to zero, at least not immediately. Despite the apparent foregone-ness of the game’s conclusion, the Mariners battled on. It was heroic, kind of like Conan. (The Barbarian, not the comedian). Unfortunately, as I write this, it appears that the Mariners now have a zero percent chance of winning. So, despite the Mariners’ admirable collective willingness to keep fighting, the statistics say that it’s past time to give up hope of a comeback. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, fellow diehards, but numbers don’t lie.

• The Mariners committed four errors in this game. That’s a very large amount of errors, and it indicates carelessness on the part of the Mariners. It seems that the Mariners may not have been trying that hard after all. They may have even been drunk. This might be harsh, but I’m going to have to revoke that earlier Conan comparison. These Mariners don’t deserve it.

• One “Henry Blanco” played in the game, for the Mariners. Who? Ya got me. There’s a reason I Googled “what does henry blanco look like” earlier this week. That makes him, statistically speaking, the most obscure player on the Mariners (at least when it comes to statistics based on my personal internet search history). What I have learned about Henry Blanco, in the extensive research I’ve conducted while writing this article, is that he’s very bad and he’s very old. He has literally no hope of being good. No team that truly cared about winning would be starting Henry Blanco. And if the team doesn’t care, then why should we care? We shouldn’t. It makes no sense. And yet here you are, caring about the results of a team that starts Henry Blanco. You fool.

• Two final statistics for you: 14 and 17. The first statistic, 14, is the number of hours until the Mariners play yet another game, thus consigning this one to historical trivia. The second statistic, 17, is the estimated number of hours until I’ll have completely forgotten about this game. Bring on the amnesia, baby. I can’t wait.

8/3/2013 -- HIGH STAKES MARINERS ACTION

Friday night, the alpha-bulls that are the Seattle Mariners and the Baltimore Orioles locked horns in a VERY IMPORTANT BASEBALL GAME. This was a big one. The date was August 2, 2013, and there would be only one chance. If the Mariners won, the August 2, 2013 championship belt would be theirs for all eternity. If they lost, the Mariners would have to forever cope with the fact that they had lost on August 2, 2013. No success, no matter how great, could ever erase the fact of that defeat. The blemish would stand forever, laughing from the pages of the record books, cruelly taunting the Mariners with the harsh right angle of its capital “L”. Needless to say, the Mariners really wanted to win.

Unfortunately for the Mariners, the Orioles also wanted to win, and in the sport of baseball each game can have only one winner. The two teams would have to fight it out, dueling with the weapons that they had all worked so hard to master: wooden sticks, leather balls, and leather gloves. The terms of combat would be as they always were: the teams would take turns, alternately throwing balls and swinging sticks. Each team would need to advance its runners along the basepaths by hitting the ball between the white lines and getting to the first base before the other team got the ball to the first base, unless the other team caught the ball before it touched the ground, in which case it wouldn’t matter who got to the first base first, and also there were other bases and the first base didn’t really matter to the actual scoring, and also sometimes things would happen without the ball being hit at all. This was the most sensible way of settling matters.

Sadly, the Mariners lost, thanks to an obscure baseball rule that states that the team with the most runs is the winner. It was a bitter pill to swallow, as the Mariners had really scored quite a good number of runs in their innings, and usually teams that score that many runs win. After the game, the Mariners eagerly pointed at the number of runs that they had scored (8), and also raved about the number of times that they had hit the ball over the fence between the white lines (4). This was success, they insisted. This was what the people wanted. But the rules were the rules, and the Mariners were forced to concede defeat. Tragic.

They’ll play again tonight, and that game will be equally unique and once-in-a-lifetime, just like all the rest of them. I know I’m excited. How excited? I JUST TURNED ON CAPS LOCK. THAT’S HOW EXCITED. GO MARINERS!