August 7, 2011: Mariners 1, Angels 2 (49-64)

Felix Hernandez must feel pretty bad right now. He threw a complete game today, striking out twelve, walking none, and allowing four hits and two runs. It was a dominating performance. And it wasn’t good enough. The Mariners left him out there all night long, they put the game on his shoulders and trusted him to carry them to victory, and he failed. He singlehandedly let the team down, and, for the tenth time this season, earned sole credit for the loss. And he totally deserved it.

Really, it must be hard to deal with failing so abjectly when there’s so many people counting on you. Imagine what it must be like in the clubhouse — Felix off in the corner with his head down, everyone else pointing and whispering. Some are considering extreme solutions. Can they tolerate Felix failing them again? He needs to be made an example of, so that nobody thinks this kind of behavior is acceptable. It’s a team game, Felix. You aren’t just playing for yourself. Maybe actually try next time, instead of coasting to a lazy defeat? But I don’t need to go on. Felix knows all this, and no one is more critical of his pitching than himself. I’m sure the tears and wrenching inner torment are punishment enough.

Honestly, this whole situation is probably good for the Mariners. Felix will try to snuff the burning pain of failure with hard work and improvement. It’ll make him a better pitcher, and if it doesn’t, good riddance. There’s no place for lazy malcontents on a team like the Mariners. It’ll also come in handy once contract-negotiating time rolls around. Felix might be a great pitcher, but losses like these absolutely justify a lower salary. That’s good, because the Mariners will need that extra money to sign some decent players to pick up Felix’s slack. They aren’t going to let him run this team into the ground forever.

As for the rest of the team, they had an ok game. They scored a whole one run over nine innings. It’s not their fault it wasn’t enough. They even had a dinger! Is it too much to ask for the pitching to do their job? When it comes to the Mariners… yeah, apparently it is too much to ask. Oh well. The truth is, the team has built up this culture of failure for a long time. Felix Hernandez may have cost them this game, but that’s only because the team gave him the opportunity to. They made their bed; now they get to sleep in it. With any luck, they won’t wake up again until after the season is over. That would be nice — if they decided to give up and not play any more games this year. That would be very nice indeed. I don’t know how much more of this I can take*.

*I'm not talking about the losing. I don't care one whit about the losing. What I can't take is the relentless, pointless grind, day after day, neverending. These games just keep coming, and I have to keep writing about them, even if I don't actually want to. I HAVE to. I don't have any choice in the matter. What am I going to do, not write about these games? Don't be ridiculous. If it was that easy, I would have done it already. Yes, it sure does suck to be stuck in this situation through absolutely no fault of my own. The universe is a cruel, dark place, and this is how it has chosen to punish me, with this ceaseless Sisyphean task. It's totally unfair that my life has to be like this, but I think I've finally found a solution, found something that I CAN do: I can whine about it. So that's what I'll do. I'll whine, and I'll complain, and I'll gripe, and at the end of the day maybe that will be enough.