It’s been a week since I checked in on the Mariners, because it’s obviously no fun talking about this team blowing its latest and best playoff opportunity.
Since that 12-inning thriller against the A’s to at least avoid a sweep in that series, the M’s have gone 2-4, losing to both the Dodgers and Astros at home. From a series perspective – dating back to early July – the Mariners have won exactly 2 of their last 13 series (with 2-game tie vs. the Giants mixed in). It’s been absolutely brutal, and no amount of road sweeps against an injury-depleted Astros team (that for some mysterious reason hasn’t been all that good at home this year anyway) will make up for the fact that the Mariners SUUUUUUCK right now, and probably forever.
That Dodgers series, for instance, was a fucking joke. The Dodgers won 2 of 3 games, yet the point differential in that series saw the Mariners at -20, thanks to two miserable fucking blowouts (11-1 and 12-1). The only saving grace was a 10th inning walk-off balk after our two best relievers blew a 3-run lead in the final two innings with 3 solo homers. If that isn’t a harbinger of things to come, I don’t know what is.
The Astros series was only marginally better – in that we didn’t get fucking blown out in any of the games – but the result was still the same: losing 2 of 3. Felix gave us something close to a quality start in his first game back after his lone bullpen appearance in relief of the injured Paxton. He went 6 innings, giving up 4 runs, and Cano bashed a 3-run dinger late to break up the tie.
We were saddled with the dreaded bullpen game the next day, with both teams dealing with injured starters (Mike Leake was actually too sick to pitch, because even in the dead of summer, guys still get colds). Nick Vincent got the Opener role, going 2 scoreless innings before giving way to a minor league spot start in Ross Detwiler. Det went 6 innings, giving up 3 runs, and it’s truly unfathomable that we would go on to lose this game just giving up those 3 runs. Somehow, some way, this offense could only muster up 2 runs and that was that. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
PLAYOFF. TEAMS. DON’T. LOSE. THESE. TYPES. OF. GAMES. HAND CLAP EMOJI!
Bummer for Detwiler was he got released the next day, because things are tight in the bullpen right now and we always have to be on the lookout for a mediocre start. Like, for instance, Marco Gonzales, getting the nod in the rubber match! He’s been on just a fucking trainwreck of a streak, so the team held him back a few days to rest his arm a bit. It … did not help. He went 3 innings, gave up 8 runs on 11 hits, and pretty much single-handedly lost us this game, as we would mount a futile comeback before losing by the score of 10-7.
Yeah, Root Sports, you COULD say the silver lining from this series was that the bats looked better. Then again, I dunno, we only scored the 2 runs against a bullpen day. And, it feels like no small coincidence that this surge of runs came about because the red hot Ben Gamel was called back up and started all three days, so MAYBE HE NEVER SHOULD’VE BEEN SENT TO TACOMA IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE, PARTICULARLY WHEN YOU’VE BEEN IN THE TANK SO LONG OFFENSIVELY, YOU FUCKING DOLTS!
Look, it’s as over as over can be. The Astros weathered the storm and they’re steadily getting their regulars back from the DL. The A’s aren’t going anywhere; this clearly is not a hot streak, but just a better approximation of what they are: a really fucking good team. We’re 4.5 games out of the wild card and 5.5 games out of the division; once again it’s Close But No Cigar for the Seattle Mariners
I hate this team so fucking much.