I can’t even begin to tell you how many times we’ve gone into a series – both this year and in the last decade plus – where we explicitly stated this would be the “most important series” of the year.  The turning point, if you will.  Obviously, there’s a little bit of hyperbole mixed in there, as there seems to be four or five “most important series” throughout any given season, but there we were heading into yesterday, 1.5 games out of the second Wild Card spot, in a 4-game series against the very team who HAS that second Wild Card spot.  Tell me a series that’s been bigger than this one so far this year!  There may still be bigger series ahead, but we’re in the here and now, and the Royals got to get got!

So, yeah, of course, run Yovani Sighardo out there (5 innings, 3 runs, couldn’t get a single out in the sixth before being pulled at 84 pitches), have him give up leads in back-to-back innings, and then fuck it all away in relief.  Kyle Seager, while he hit a pretty meaningless solo homer, managed to go 0 for 2 with RISP a day after probably his worst offensive game of the year.  Mike Zunino is in another huge fucking slump and looks lost at the plate again.  Jean Segura and Ben Gamel are slowly frittering away their awesome numbers.  And, here we are, in a 1-game hole with three games to go.

I mean, what can you say that hasn’t already been said?  Just when you think MAYBE Gallardo has things all figured out for just one game, NOPE!  Instead of giving up all his runs in the first inning and then “settling down”, he started the game “cruising along” before hitting a bumpy patch or whatever the fuck euphemism you want to slap on his game.  Somehow, he always seems to do “pretty good” except for one bad inning or some shit.

But, I’m putting this one on the offense.  They really need to get their shit together and start picking this team up.  Not once in a while, not after breakfast, NOW!  And every game after that!

This loss sucks even more dick, because it puts impossible pressure on the next two days.  James Paxton absolutely HAS to have a dominating effort tonight.  You’d think that’d be simple enough, but it’s not July anymore.  I know calendar months are arbitrary units of measurement when it comes to a baseball season, but I’ve also been following the Mariners for 20+ years (God damn, has it really been THAT long?), and it always seems like guys will be hot for exactly one month, and then the calendar page flips and they revert back to whatever nonsense they were before.  Which, in this case, you’d have to think would still be pretty good, but we don’t know how he’s going to look tonight.  It wouldn’t surprise me if the Royals bashed him around but good.

That leaves the weekend half of the series with Felix and Erasmo.  If Paxton wins, fine, maybe you can hope for a split, but that’s still relying on the likes of Felix and Erasmo.  If Paxton LOSES, then guess what?  Say hello to a series sweep and another week of bitching about how these Mariners can fucking eat my ass cheese.

Have I told you how much I hate baseball?