A Cal Raleigh “Trident's Up!” cookie from Sugar Bakery on First Hill. It was delicious.

This evening I'm going to Game 1 of the American League Division Series, Mariners vs. Tigers, with my friend Tim. Wednesday night, we had a raffle among the season ticket holders for the two/potentially three ALDS home games, including our regular seats and others that our season-ticket guru, Stephen M., personal friend to Raquel Welch, managed to snag for us. I thought we should draft for individual seats rather than pairs and that the pain of the more-expensive secondary tix should be spread amongst all of us, but I was voted down. I wound up with the better, season-ticket seats at the cheaper price. So it goes. I still feel guilty. I still think the system has a few bugs in it. 

I'm hoping this game doesn't last as long as the last Mariners postseason game I attended at Mariners Park—the only postseason game at Mariners Park between 2002 and now—when, down two games to none against the Hated Houston Astros, we battled them in a 0-0 affair until their young starling rather than ours, Jeremy Pena, hit a solo homerun in the top of the 18th (yes, 18th), and we couldn't answer back: groundout, groundout, flyout by Julio. That last one, says, Baseball Reference, was to “Deep CF” but I don't remember getting my hopes up. I don't remember thinking, “Could it go...?” Maybe I was just too tired by then. Maybe the haze of October wildfire smoke was getting to me and I wasn't getting enough oxygen to the brain. 

Oct. 2022 doesn't seem that long ago but this was our starting lineup that day:

• Julio Rodriguez CF
• Ty France 1B
• Eugenio Suarez 3B
• Cal Raleigh C
• Mitch Haniger RF
• Carlos Santana DH
• Adam Frazier 2B
• Jarred Kelenic LF
• J.P. Crawford SS

We still have the Big Three, the thrillogy of Julio, Cal, and J.P., and we re-have Eugenio, but, no-duh, our lineup is way better now: a more mature Julio, a 60-homer Cal (like WTF???), plus Randy Arozarena instead of Kelenic, Victor Robles in place of Mitch Haniger, Jorge Palanco in place of 2022 Wild Card-hero Adam Frazier, and, maybe biggest of all, Josh Naylor at 1B. Though we could lose him any moment to fatherhood. His wife is due in Arizona and he plans to head there once she goes into labor. Best of luck to the Naylor family. Good thoughts all around. 

I also like our manager better now: Dan Wilson over Scott Servais. Eugenio, for example, only played half that 2022 game. Bottom 9, he led off with a single and was promptly replaced by pinchrunner Dylan Moore ... who was promptly out in a fielder's choice; but he remained for the rest of the game at third, batting third. Maybe it was a good move? A good gamble at the time? I don't know. But for half that game (really, a full game, nine innings), our No. 3 hitter was lifetime .206 hitter Dylan Moore.

But maybe I just like Dan better because he's Dan, and because I don't know the team as well as I used to. From '93 to 2003, I felt like I knew our team better than manager Lou Piniella and way better than GM Woody Woodward. Put it this way: I had an opinion about everything, every move, every bullpen call. “That guy??? You're kidding!!” Many of my opinions were often wrong, sure. “You're pinchhitting with Alex Diaz? Are you crazy, Lou???” CRACK! Three-run homer. “Yayyyy, Lou!”

The point is, I knew who everyone was. Now I don't. That's what happens when you don't watch the games, Mariners. I cut cable in 2016 and Major League Baseball and the Mariners have made it difficult for us folks ever since. I had the MLB.TV streaming package this season, but of course M's games are blacked out, so I mostly saw M's games I went to, 10 in all, and not even 10 since I was sick for a few of them in early July. So it goes. And even with the MLB.TV package, I couldn't watch the wild-card games this week. Cuz baseball.

WATCH, but ... psych! I'll never not complain about this. You're a sport on the wane, and you're telling your supporters that they can buy your product but first you have to buy someone else's product. Beyond dumb.

Anyway, I knew our current Mariners so little that when Tim and I attended a game in mid-September, with Bryan Woo on the mound, I asked him if he'd be his Game 1 starter if we made the postseason. “God, yes,” Tim said, or some such. Well, we made the postseason but Woo didn't. Arm injury. Day to day. So instead, George Kirby, with, I guess, Luis Castillo going tomorrow against past- and future-Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal (was a racehorse).

We match up well against the Tigers. They have the ace but nothing truly scary on the mound after that, and he won't be on the mound for three of the potentially five games. Both teams are middling in hits, bad at doubles (they're 23rd in the Majors, we're 29th), strike out tons, but we're decidedly better in walks, homeruns and, surprising to me, stolen bases. Maybe that adds up to Ws:

There's a three-win difference, with us on top, 90 to 87, but the big difference is when those games were won. They had a first half for the ages (59-38), and then fell like Icarus (28-37), including 7-17 in September, while we had that September to Remember, going 17-1 at one point.

That said, it's a new season. The marathon is over. Here's to the sprint. See you in Section 327.