Seattle Mariners posts

Will we still see this in spring?

Three of the last four players to reach 3,000 hits were Seattle Mariners. Key word: were. They either were drafted by and made their names as Mariners (A-Rod), spent their rocky prime years with us (Adrian Beltre), or will forever be identified with the team (Ichiro). But none of them actually reached 3,000 hits as a Seattle Mariner:

• Alex Rodriguez had accumulated 966 hits when he left us after the 2000 season for a massive free agency deal with Texas that the team (and he) soon regretted. (He hit his 3,000th, a homer, in 2015 as a Yankee.)
• Ichiro had 2,533 hits when we traded him mid-2012 to the hated New York Yankees. (He hit his 3,000th, a triple, in 2016 as a Miami Marlin). 
• When Adrian Beltre desperately left Safeco Field after his prime middling years with us, he was at exactly 1700 hits. (He hit his 3,000th, a double, in 2017 as a Texas Ranger.)

I bring all this up because apparently the Mariners are shopping Robinson Cano, who still has five years left on his massive 10-year deal, and I assume all the no-trade clauses that go with high-end free agent signings. I was against signing Cano back in December 2013—nice thing about a blog: You have evidence—but I‘ve also loved having him on the team. The very thing that bugged Yankees fans—his looseness, which they took as laziness—I’ve loved. The nonchalance most players display he's able to turn up to 11. He makes tough plays look easy, and he makes routine plays look as if he could do them in his sleep; as if he were bored halfway through. Yeah, this. Got this. Man, I'm already in the dugout.

And beyond his banned-substance suspension, and his acid-reflux slump in 2015, he's done as well or better than I thought he would: .296/.353/.472. 23.6 WAR.

But now comes the tough part—the final five years. Ages 36 through 40 at $24 mil a pop. When a player hits a cliff, it's usually not pretty. So if the Mariners could unload him for the worst years of the deal, that would be an unexpected boon. Depending, of course, on how much we have to pay to unload him.

Drawbacks? For now, he's still good (.303/.374/.471 last year). And barring disaster, or more PED-inspired longterm suspensions, he has a good chance at 3,000 hits. He's 530 short, at 2,470, and for a full season as a Mariner he's never had fewer than 166. Last year, despite being suspended for half the season, he came through with 94 hits. I could see him getting his 3,000th in 2021 or ‘22.

I know it’s a small thing, but the Mariners have never had someone in their uni get his 3,000th. I'd assumed, given the size of his contract, he would be the one. 

The eagle has landed, but the M's just traded Tranquility Base.

I keep going back and forth on the Seattle Mariners trading ace James Paxton to the hated New York Yankees. 

• He's 30, and prone to injury, and one assumes after 30 it's a downhill slide.
• He just turned 30—November 6. And he actually pitched more the older he's gotten. Via The Athletic:
• Season        IP             SO
  2016           121           117
  2017           136           156
  2018           160.1        208
• Sure, but, per Art Thiel, he hasn't exactly been a win machine. His career win total after six seasons in the bigs? 41. His season high? 12, in 2017. Here's an amazing stat from Thiel: “Paxton has 52 fewer career wins than rotation mate Mike Leake, also 30.” Yikes!
• C‘mon, you know M’s fans had way more confidence when Paxton stepped on the mound than when Leake did. Plus wins are your dad's pitching stat. Other stats like ERA (3.42 career) and K/BB rate (617/168) matter more.  
• Well, at least it's a direction for the M‘s. It’s an obvious strategy. They‘re saying, “Yeah, it’s not going to happen next year, kids. We‘re trading for the future.”
• Well, “It’s not going to happen next year, kids” is certainly something M's fans are used to.  
• I know: longest active playoff drought in Major League Baseball. That's why we gotta shake things up!
• So we can get nauseous? Plus I liked Paxton. He was Big Maple: a tall, quiet, kinda goofy Canadian who pitched a no-hitter on Canadian soil, struck out 16 Athletics, and remained cool as a cucumber and tall as a tree when a pre-game ceremony in Minnesota went awry and an eagle landed on his shoulder. All of these are among my favorite moments from this past season. 
• Which was just another season we didn't make the playoffs. And it's not going to get better in 2019. 
• It will for the Yankees. Don't you rememember your rule? Never trade with the New York Yankees. Never never never. You never help them. Never! See: Tino/Nellie for Sterlling/Russ.
• See: Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps.
• Ancient history. What about Michael Pineda for Jesus Montero?
• What about it? I don't think anyone came out on top there. 
• Really? Pineda won 31 games for the Yankees. 
• And he lost 31 games for them.
• But he accumulated 6.4 WAR.
• WAR schmore. You‘re nickel-and-diming.
• Please. You know what Montero’s total WAR with the Mariners was? -0.9. That's a minus. In four seasons. 
• The trade was a wash. 
• In which we got cleaned. 
• Oh, so clever.
• You should try it some time. 
• Fuck you. 
• Fuck you!

Etc.

Bottom line: My heart is bummed, my head says going young is good if the deals are smart. The proviso is the issue. The M's haven't exactly been smart this century. Corey Brock's piece on the trade includes this sad paragraph:

Since 1998, Seattle has drafted and developed only two players who have a WAR (wins above replacement) of 10.0 or higher with the club: Seager (27.9) and Paxton (10.9). That’s by far the lowest mark among teams in the American League West, and certainly a contributing factor as to why the Mariners have not advanced to the postseason since 2001.

Jimmy, we hardly knew ye. I'd wish you well, but ... Yankees. 

Ken Rosenthal has a piece on The Athletic about off-season trade questions, including: Should Arizona trade Zack Greinke? How much research are the Yankees doing on Manny Machado anyway? And which execs are going to lead Baltimore into the future?

Plus this: 

And what about Canó?

Yeah, what about Canó?

It's basically: Are the Mariners going to tear down and rebuild? Even if they do, suggests Rosenthal, who wants the scraps? Both Felix and Kyle Seager have big contracts and are in the midst of seemingly unstoppable downhill slides. Then there's Robinson Canó, who was busted for taking a banned PED-masking supplement, missed half the season, and still has another five years and $120 million on his contract. Not many teams want to pick that up, even with a boost/bribe from the M‘s. 

More, the M’s just traded for Mallex Smith, a centerfielder, which means Dee Gordon's experimental season there might be at an end. But if he goes back to second, his natural spot, where does Canó go? To first base? Where he doesn't want to go?

Rosenthal ends the section on a surprisingly ominous, almost vindictive note: 

Canó surely wants to salvage his legacy, but his path to Cooperstown might be as difficult to forge as his path out of Seattle. He made his choices. Now he faces the consequences.

My thought: What exactly are those consequences, Ken? Playing first base? Or just playing in Seattle? 

It's the final day of the regular season, and shockingly two details remain unironed: Who wins the NL West (Dodgers or Rockies?) and who wins the NL Central (Cubs or Brewers)? Meaning we‘ll get not one but two Game 163s tomorrow. Free baseball!

As for who won’t be continuing? For the 17th season in a row? Yeah, our Seattle Mariners. As was indicated by the crowd at Safeco Field on a lovely night last Thursday:

I‘ve never seen our section that empty.

If the fans didn’t show, neither did the Ms. Facing a bunch of Texas pitchers with ERAs over 6.00, we managed three hits:

• a single in the 2nd by Vogelbach (stranded at 1st)
• a single in the 6th by Gamel (erased on a DP)
• a single by Haniger in the 9th (stranded at 1st)

The closest we got to scoring was a two-out, two-base error on a grounder by Haniger in the 6th (after the DP). We never made it to 3rd base. Without errors, we never made it to 2nd base. Final: 2-zip, Texas. No bangs, barely a whimper. 

That said, it wasn't a bad year. It was the lesser version of those classic ‘90s M’s ads: You gotta like these guys. And I did. We had personality. We had fun. Think Dee Gordon's Griffeyesque homerun on a chilly April, and Big Maple remaining zen-calm as an American Eagle landed on his shoulder during pregames in Minnesota. Then that May he had: striking out 16 A's in one start and pitching a no-hitter against Toronto in his native Canada in the next. Albert Pujols got his 3,000 hit at Safeco for the visiting Angels. Ichiro retired but gave us a final great defensive play, then stayed on as a good will ambassador and even joked around with new superstar Shohei Ohtani. In May, I took a friend from Australia to see her first baseball game, and in June a friend from China. Through it all, the M's kept winning. Edwin Diaz kept mowing ‘em down. 

Those were the best of times. But there were worst-of-times intimations. Since 2014, King Felix’s crown has been slipping. Here are his ERAs, year by year: 2.14, 3.53, 3.82, and last year, 4.36. This year's 5.55—one off the mark of the devil—got him exiled to the bullpen for a period. Robinson Cano started off hot, but in the off-season he'd tested positive for PEDs (or a banned diuretic that rids the body of evidence of PEDs), and eventually he took his punishment: We lost him for half the season. Plus our run differential remained in negative territory. I had a conversation with my friend Jim in June or July, hashing this out. He was saying, “I don't like it, it's not going to last.” I was saying, “I didn't expect it, so this is a gift.” Both of us were right. He was righter. 

On July 3, after beating the Angels 4-1 at Safeco, the M's were 55-31, 24 games over .500 and just 1/2 game back of the division-leading Houston Astros. They were the second, solid team in the wild-card hunt. Our long, local, postseasonless nightmare seemed over, possibly.

Since? 34-42. In the second half, we did well against the Astros (8-5), and held our own against the hard-charging A's (4-6) but got killed by, of all teams, NL West teams: 1-5 against Colorado and 0-4 against San Diego. We dropped 3 of 4 to Toronto. Overall, we were 6-14 against NL teams. Reverse those numbers, do better than 1-5 against the Yankees, and I'd be shelling out for playoff tickets.

Our best played by WAR was Mitch Haniger (6.0), followed by Jean Segura (4.2). You know who was third? Believe it or not, Cano (3.2), who missed 80 games. There's a problem right there. Fourth was Diaz (3.2), our closer, who was probably the most dominant player at his position in Major League Baseball. Nice to have one of those. 

M's final mark was 89-73. Normally, that's enough to get you in. Next year. Again. 

What wonders awaited. 

Here's a quick story about long, post-9/11 baseball lines. 

My wife and I and a friend stayed over in southern Washington for an engagement party Saturday night. Since no one wanted the long slog up I-5 on a traffic-congested Sunday afternoon, and since I had tix to the Sunday afternoon Mariners/Dodgers game, with Clayton Kershaw on the mound, I suggested leaving early. We did. And despite a brief jam in Tacoma—the land of the perpetual freeway construction project—it took us just three hours. We were back in Seattle at 10:30 AM—plenty of time for the 1:10 start.

But were the Mariners ready for us?

It didn't seem like it. The lines outside the gates were worse than around Tacoma. It was a mob scene. Recently I‘ve begun to use the Mariners Team Store entrance on 1st Avenue, and yes, that line was shorter—100, 150 people maybe—so we got in it. And waited. And waited. We arrived around 12:40 and didn’t get through the security checkpoint and into the building until after the game had started. Meaning it took us more time moving those 100 feet than it did driving from Tacoma to Seattle.

Thankfully, after all that hassle, we were able to buy $12.50 beers, and, surrounded by Dodgers fans, watch as the M's fell behind 5-0 in the 1st, on their way to losing 12-1, all beneath hazy, wildfire-ravaged skies and air quality unhealthier than Beijing. 

Maybe that's why they kept us from trying to enter. Maybe they thought they were doing us a favor.

Dee sports the sleeveless, untucked and backwards cap look. 很好看。

So I took my Chinese teacher to the Seattle Mariners game last Saturday. She’s heading back to China in August, had never seen a baseball game, and how can you let someone leave the states without at least one game? Plus there’s the whole Confucian thing. When I lived in Taiwan, and I was out with Chinese peers, they wouldn’t let me buy anything. I heard this over and over again: 

有朋自远方来， 不亦乐乎？

It can translated a thousand ways, but this is the gist: “To have friends come from far away, isn’t that a joy?” I.e., Be a good host, damnit.

This was my third attempt in the last few years to explain the game to someone from another country. I should be getting better at it but ... no. Most team sports are metaphors for war: You have a rectangular field, a goal on either side, and an object of some kind. The point is to get that object into your opponent’s goal more often than they get it into yours before time expires. Easy.

Baseball’s different and I always struggle about where to begin. In the future, this wouldn’t be a bad place:

The goal of the game is to make it around the bases before making an out, and the team that does this the most times wins.

But I didn’t do that on Saturday. I began with the outs, and the three main ways to make an out: ground ball, fly ball, strikeout. Strikeout was the most difficult, beause it led to “ball” and “strike zone” and what happens when you don’t swing. Not to mention “foul ball.” I didn’t even get into the whole “foul ball with two strikes” thing. Good god.

As I explained all of this, positing an imaginary batter making an out and returning to the dugout, my teacher said, “And he’s gone from the game.”

“No ...” I began, but was already imagining what baseball would be like if this were true.

Beyond the game’s uniqueness: two things got in the way of better explanations: 1) the language barrier (her English was good but not like a native speaker, while my Chinese is beginning level); and 2) Safeco’s loudspeakers and constant music and announcements. It's so loud it makes it difficult to hold a conversation, let alone explain the game to someone from another country who’s never seen it. My throat was raw by the second inning.

Oh, a third thing got in the way: It was “Turn Ahead the Clock” Night at Safeco: the Mariners wore their “futuristic” unis with cut-off sleeves and crazy colors and logos. The entire game was centered around this. A robot delivered the rosin bag, the National Anthem singer had Spock ears, and the PA announcer sounded like Majel Barret’s computer voice on “Star Trek”: Occupying second quadrant, digit 9, Dee Gordon. “Normally,” I explained to my teacher, “we’d hear, ‘Playing second base, number 9...’ So this is just a kind of play off of that.” Things got even tougher when I said the whole concept of Turn Ahead the Clock nights was a parody of Turn Back the Clock nights, in which players from both teams wear the uniforms from, say, 50 years earlier. 为什么？she asked. Why do they do that? And that led to a talk about nostalgia: people wanting to see what they saw when they were young.

The M’s were playing the Royals—hapless again after a few years as one of baseball’s best and most fun teams—but it began poorly for our starting pitcher, Felix Hernandez. He gave up a single, a single, then a homerun. Three batters, three runs. Ouch. Then he settled in. The Mariners came back with a run in the bottom of the first, and after I pointed this out on the scoreboard above the left-field wall, my teacher said, “So the Royals win that round.”

Um ... Sure. 

In the end, she got to see quite a game. M's hit for the cycle: Ryon Healey homered in the second to tie it up, Ben Gamel tripled in the same inning to put us ahead, and Denard Span doubled in the third to pad the lead. Singles were spread out all over, but that's all they'd need. Edwin Diaz closed the door in the ninth and the M's won the future, 6-4. My teacher also got a free cap. It's brick-red rather than traditonal blue but that's probably better: red is a lucky color in China.

Too much me and not enough Candace at Safeco Field on Sunday. She's wearing the new M's cap she bought—flat brim, as the kids do.

I went to the Seattle Mariners game on Sunday afternoon with a friend from Australia, Candace, who's lived in the states for five or so years, had never been to an MLB game, and always wanted to see one. She saw a not-bad one: a 3-1 victory over the Minnesota Twins in a quick two and a half hours under blue skies. M's scored two with two outs in the bottom of the 8th. Our earlier run came on a Kyle Seager homer that we didn't see; we were standing in long slow line to get a Mariner Dog. Yep, the hot dog, too. She wanted the whole experience. 

This baseball lesson wasn't like the one with my friend from Lebanon. Candace had played softball growing up so she knew the rudiments—although I did remind her about nine innings, visiting team batting first, three outs, etc. I gave examples of outs: ground, fly, strike. She asked about the guys wearing black and I said they were the umpires. I said there were four here but six in the postseason. She asked what the postseason was. I told her. I told her you could tell the teams apart because the home team tended to wear white and the road team gray. I added that my father told me that when he took me to my first MLB game when I was about 4 years old. I still remember him telling me. Maybe because it added clarity to the proceedings. “Ah, so I root for these guys.” 

I also told Candace the “Yo La Tengo” story. Just not as well as Roger Angell. 

Throughout, she peppered me with good questions. She asked if the best hitter batted first. When a Mariner finally got aboard with a single, she asked why there were two Mariners on first base, so I had to explain about first/third-base coaches and what they did. I told her that traditionally the fastest guy batted first, but over the years it's evolved to where you want someone who isn't slow with a good OBP at the top of the lineup. I explained OBP and batting average, and how you calculate both: percentages to the thousandth rather than hundredth point. I told her what a clean-up hitter was. 

She seemed most impressed by, or made the most noise about, foul balls ricocheting back. We were 300-level behind homeplate so I didn't give a second glance to most of them, but she was worried for the other fans. “Do they get hit often?” she asked. I replied: “Thrown and batted balls can be dangerous. The Seattle Mariners and Major League Baseball wish fans a safe and happy...blah blah blah.” You'd think I'd know this official warning verbatim by now. In my younger days, with a spongier brain, I would have. Oh, I then told her about Carl Mays and Ray Chapman. That was chilling to her. 

There was one question she asked that I couldn't answer. She said that for a holiday that felt like it should be about quiet with remembrance, everyone seemed fairly loud and celebratory during Memorial Day weekend. I nodded and said that's the nature of American holidays. We want to honor a thing but we wind up whooping it up for the day off. Plus we‘re not particularly good at history or remembering. Cf., Bowie:

Do you remember your President Nixon?
Do you remember the bills you have to pay
Or even yesterday?

The question I couldn’t answer? “Why was Memorial Day at the end of May? Was it tied to some battle?” Yesterday morning, Memorial Day morning, I looked it up. Apparently the holiday began in the South during the Civil War and spread North after the war. It's not only about remembering war dead, of course, but placing flowers on their tombstones. Which is one possible answer as to why it's held during the last Monday in May:

The first northern Memorial Day was observed on May 30, 1868. One author claims that the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of any particular battle. According to a White House address in 2010, the date was chosen as the optimal date for flowers to be in bloom in the North.

 That second answer makes the most sense. 

This was the profile I wrote about newcomer Ichiro Suzuki for The Grand Salami, the Seattle Mariners alternative program, back in the spring of 2001:

Hey, when did we pick up this guy? Just kidding. Ichiro comes to the M's with quite a bit of fanfare, and a playing record whose numerological significance seems something out of folklore. You‘ve heard of the 7 Deadly Sins, the 7 Wonders of the World? Ichiro won 7 straight batting titles with the Orix Blue Wave, 7 straight Gold Gloves; he was named to 7 straight “Best Nine” All-Star teams. And he’s only 27. He has a .353 lifetime batting average and Michael Jordan stature in Japan. Yet he's given it all up to try to become the first Japanese position player to make it big in the bigs. Can he do it? That's the question. The U.S. players he's been compared to keeps leveling off: from Johnny Damon (hitting plus power) to Rod Carew (hitting with no power) to Brett Butler (hitting, but not Rod Carew-type hitting). How does .353 translate into English? We hope well.

This is what I wrote three weeks into the season:

Well, that didn't take long. In his first game he looked a little overmatched against Oakland's Tim Hudson—and admitted as much in a post-game interview—but that didn't stop him from dropping a key bunt-hit to help win the game. Four days later against Texas (and You-Know-Who), Ichiro went deep in the 10th inning for the game-winner. The following week against Oakland, he made a throw from right field (now capitalized: The Throw) which defied physics, nailing Terrence Long at third. A week later he robbed Raffy Palmeiro of a homerun at Safeco. What's next? Lightning bolts shooting from his hands? Ridding the universe of evil-doers everywhere—or at least Scott Boras? And we haven't even mentioned the way he slaps that sweet single between third and short, his speed on the basepaths, and his quiet efficiency in an age of blowhard swagger. To paraphrase an old ad slogan: You Gotta Love This Guy.

So we did. So we do. 

Today, the Seattle Mariners announced Ichiro Suzuki would be leaving the field but not the team. He's being kicked upstairs and given a suit and a Zhou Enlai-like title: “Special Assistant to the Chairman.” Good call. Whenever a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer is slipping toward Mendoza territory, as Ichiro was this season with his .205/.255/.205 line, it's probably time. 

But what fun to recall that great rookie season in 2001, when he hit .350, collected 242 hits, stole 56 bases, and electrified several continents. He also hit .600 in his first post-season series. I'd forgotten that. Against Cleveland in a 5-game ALDS he went 12 for 20. It was one of four post-season series he would play in: two in 2001 (ended by the Yankees) and two in 2012 (with the Yankees). He never made the World Series. Like Junior and Edgar. Our best players are ringless.  

That 242 hits, by the way? That was the ninth-most hits in a single season in MLB history, and the most in any season since 1930. Three years later, he set the record with 262. He broke a record no one had come close to breaking since the ‘20s. Just look at the guys who have collected the most hits in a season in baseball history. That first row of a dozen guys. Nothing but black-and-white photos. And then Ichiro. Twice. 

He collected 200+ hits 10 years in a row—another record. He collected 10 Gold Gloves. He wound up with 3,089 hits, which is amazing when you consider he didn’t get his first hit in the Majors until he was 27. Combine what he did in Japan and the U.S., he had more professional hits than anyone in baseball history. 

On the Mariners, he's the all-time team leader in hits (2,542), batting average (.322), at-bats (7,902), triples (79) and stolen bases (438). He's second in games (1,859) and runs (1,181). He's third in total bases (3,292). He‘ll be the third Seattle Mariner inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

I haven’t even gotten to the intangibles: the sumo stretching moves in the on-deck circle, the sleeve tug, the cool. On the Terrence Long throw, he was so matter-of-fact it sounds like bragging: “The ball was hit right to me,” he said. “Why did he run when I was going to throw him out?”

Someone on Twitter suggested it was a shame Ichiro didn't get to go out like Derek Jeter: collecting gifts and accolades in stadium after stadium until you wanted to slug the dude. My friend Nick's response: “Self-effacing Ichiro? Don't think he wants that, deserving though he is.”

Ichiro's last game was last night at Safeco. He went 0-3 with a walk and he scored one of the M's two runs. The last hit in his remarkable baseball career happened more than a week ago, April 22 against Texas, 4th inning. It's not a hit for most people, but for this 44-year-old, yes: a single to shortstop.

My second M's game of the season last night against the A's was memorable despite being pretty damned similar to my first M's game of the season, April 1 against Cleveland—the last game the M's played at Safeco before their recent eight-game roadtrip. In both:

• Mike Leake started
• M's fell behind 2-0
• They tied it 2-2 on a Kyle Seager double
• They soared ahead in the bottom of the 7th on two homeruns, one by Mitch Hanniger, the other by a player who doesn't hit many (Dee Gordon/Daniel Vogelbach)
• Juan Nicasio gave up a dinger in the top of the 8th—a no-doubter to a guy who had hit one earlier in the game (Edwin Encarnacion/Khrys Davis)
• Edwin Diaz closed it out in the 9th

Opposition line in the first game: 4/7/0. This one: 4/8/0. M's line went from 5/8/1 to 7/11/1. Almost all of our hitting came from the top half of the lineup. Bottom half is Death Valley. April 1st, our bottom four spots went 1-15 with a walk. Last night, 2-16 without a walk. Ichiro, batting 8th, went 0-3 with a K in both games. In both games, he was replaced in the top of the 8th by Guillermo Heredia, who, in the bottom of the 8th, got on (walk/single). Our first baseman (Ryon Healey/Andy Romine) went 0-4 to raise/lower/unchange his average to .000. After both games, our first baseman was exactly 0-11 on the season. In both games, the weather was shitty. 

It's a formula.

All of that was still memorable because each game is unique. April 1st's shitty weather was 44 degrees at gametime and not budging thereafter. Last night, when I began walking to Safeco from First Hill, it was low 50s but seemed warmer. Halfway there, about 3rd and James, I felt a few drops. Once I hit Occidental I had to get the umbrella out. Waiting for my friend David by the glove, I stood up against the stadium, under protective eaves, and watched as the sky suddenly opened. A real downpour. Buckets. Not Seattle rain at all. David said it was like the rain in Georgia, where he's from, except in Georgia it's warm out when it does that. We watched as people scattered, squealed, jumped puddles. The Bible thumper with the loudspeaker system stood underneath it all, at 1st and Royal Brougham, proclaiming his truth, proclaiming our doom. I half admired him for it. A few hours earlier, with British and French support, Pres. Trump had ordered missile attacks on Syrian targets following Pres. Assad's chemical attacks on his own people. This in the midst of another scandal-ridden week of this scandal-ridden sad excuse for a presidency. It was less the act that bothered me, because what do I know, than the anticipated spin. This fat dipshit playing at war without consequences. Citizens in other countries worry about bombs and chemicals, I get to worry about words. Everyone in America stands under a protective eave.

I like going to games with David because he's annoyed by the things that annoyed me 20 years ago but which I‘ve since become innured to: the noisiness between innings; the urge to entertain us 24/7 with non-baseball gimcracks: cup stacking; music trivia; ball-under-cap; hydro races. Most fans cheer louder for red than for the game. What are you gonna do.

David’s friend Jacob, who is blind and works part-time at Safeco, joined us around the 4th inning. After the final out, after the M's won 7-4, we went looking to get a drink before Jacob bussed/David ubered/I walked home. Tougher than you think. There's that place with the big flame out front on the corner of Occidental and Jackson, right across the street from where FX McCrory's used to be, and which still sits unoccupied, but we opted to keep going. Bad choice. The joints were either loud dance places or closing up for the night. Eventually the moment passed, and we walked Jacob over to 4th and James for his bus. There was already a bus waiting there, not his, but I liked how the female bus driver, seeing Jacob, opened the door, asked, made sure he was alright.

Jeff and I were sitting in the Hit It Here Cafe in the 7th inning of yesterday's M's game when Dee Gordon launched a rocket right at us.

It was the M's third game of the season, the rubber match with Cleveland, and my first time in the Hit It Here Cafe. My normal seats are better (300 level behind homeplate) but it was 44 degrees at gametime, and while we were well-covered (four layers, stocking cap, gloves), it was still, you know, 44 fucking degrees at gametime. Why not warm up?

We didn't much, but the M's did. Down 2-0 when we arrived, the M's strung together three doubles in the 5th to tie it—the last, I suppose, less double than “double.” It was a grounder to first that ticked up and over Yonder Alonso's glove and into right field. Hardly an error but I would‘ve scored it one. The official scorekeeper decided no and that’s how Kyle Seager got his first hit of the season. He's now 1-10. There was also some oddity with Mitch Haniger and our third base coach. He was on first when Seager hit his double, and was halfway to home when he slammed on the brakes and retreated. Would he have been nailed at the plate? I don't know. But the revision looked more dangerous than the original plan. That third base coach, by the way, is the infamous Scott Brosius of the infamous ‘98-’00 Yanks. How did that happen? Why is he with us? Why wasn't I consulted? 

Anyway, Haniger braked, and our sub-DH for Nellie Cruz, Daniel Vogelbach, who looks like the greatest softball player in the world but doubtful for the bigs, struck out (he went 0-4), and that's where we were when Dee led off the 7th with his rocket shot. I thought, “Wow, that‘s hit. That’s a homer. From Dee Gordon? Does he hit many?” He doesn‘t. Before that swing he had 11 in his career. There are TVs in the cafe, too, and when I watched the replay, I flashed on Ken Griffey Jr., particularly the bat drop after the swing. Apparently I wasn’t the only one:

🤔🤔🤔

He *was* working out with Junior, we heard. pic.twitter.com/bORFmleZmx

— Mariners (@Mariners) April 1, 2018

So Dee has more homers than stolen bases for the season. Odds on that happening?

Cano then singled (he's hitting .600), and Haniger (hitting .625) added a homer to left, and suddenly we were up 5-2. Turns out we needed it. In the 8th, Edwin Encarnacion, who'd homered earlier, added a two-run no-doubter to make it 5-4. But our Edwin (Diaz) shut out the lights in the 9th with three swinging strikeouts on 17 pitches, and we took 2 of 3 from the defending AL Central champs. Not bad.

Some worries. Seager had an off year last year and he's starting out slow. Our new first baseman, Ryon Healy, is 0 for the season. Paxton had trouble keeping them in the park Saturday. But Felix looked good opening night, Mike Leake performed well yesterday, and Haniger looks like the real deal. I'm more optimistic than I was a week ago. 

Here's Edgar Martinez after he found out he received 70% of the Hall of Fame vote (22 votes, or 5%, shy) from the Baseball Writers Association of America today, in this, his ninth year on the ballot (it's 10 and done; then it goes to the Veterans committee): 

Thank you to all the fans out there that supported my #HOF candidacy. We are trending up, next year may be the year. Thank you @Mariners and the best fans in baseball

— Edgar Martinez (@11EdgarMartinez) January 24, 2018

 An hour later:

Congratulations to the 2018 #HOF class @VladGuerrero27 @RealCJ10 @THoffman51 and Jim Thome. Well deserved.

— Edgar Martinez (@11EdgarMartinez) January 25, 2018

Could it be otherwise? The man the Seattle Mariners kept in the minors two or three years too long; the man they thought would be a sub at best; the Mariner who was forever overlooked by the nationa media—of course he has to wait until the last year to (fingers crossed, fingers crossed) be inducted into the Hall of Fame. 

That said, it's been a remarkable turnaround. In 2015 he was still at 27% of the vote. That's when inductee Randy Johnson said if he had a vote he'd vote for Edgar. Other pitchers piled on—the best pitchers of the era: Both Pedro (whom Edgar couldn't hit) and Mariano (whom he could: .579 career) called Edgar the toughest hitter they ever faced. And the following year, Edgar's numbers leapt to 43%; then, last year, 58%. Now this. 

Next year, I'm guessing it'll be lined down the left field line for a base hit. 

FURTHER READING: No One in the Wings: The Underappreciated Career of Edgar Martinez

My man Joey Poz makes the case (for about the 20th time) for Edgar Martinez for the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's fun. Read the whole thing. Some highlights:

Mariano Rivera could not get him out. I don't think an amazing career like Edgar Martinez's could be summed up by just seven words, but those seven words tell a pretty good story. ...

Martinez faced Rivera 14 times [from 1995 to 2001]. Yes, it's true that half of those plate appearances were in 1995, when Rivera was a struggling starter still trying to find himself. Still, Martinez faced the great Rivera 14 times over a six-year period — and he reached base 13 times, hitting .769.

After 2000, when Rivera was ascendant and Martinez began to decline, Rivera got Martinez out a few times, but he knew this was only because Martinez was no longer himself. Still, Rivera never forgot. In '04, when Martinez was 41 and at the end, Rivera faced him in a tied game with the winning run on second base. Rivera walked him without hesitation. “I still don't know how to get him out,” Rivera admitted.

The last time the two men faced each other, Martinez rapped a single.

Thing is, just about every pitcher Martinez faced in his prime will list him as their toughest out. Pedro Martinez said he was the toughest hitter he ever faced, and Pedro was one of the few pitchers who actually had success against him. Randy Johnson said Martinez was the best hitter he ever saw. David Cone, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, all of them say the same thing; it seems like every good pitcher of the 1990s put Martinez in a different class. Other hitters did, too. Alex Rodriguez called him the best hitter he ever played with. Jeter said he was the one guy he would watch in the cage.

That realization — that Martinez was in a different class — seems like it will push him over the top in Hall of Fame voting.

2B or not 2B? Apparently not, as yesterday Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto acquired second baseman (and perennial NL stolen-base leader) Dee Gordon from the Miami Marlins, with plans to move him to center field. Sure, why not? He‘ll cover ground anyway, and he’s got a glove. What did we give up? I‘ll let ESPN’s David Schoenfield talk:

Jerry Dipoto has said he wanted to acquire a center fielder for the Mariners ... so he acquired Dee Gordon from the Marlins. ... He's signed for three more seasons plus an option so he could be a long-term solution there. They did give up Nick Neidert, their top pitching prospect. He's not a flamethrower, but immediately becomes one of the Marlins' top prospects as well and Derek Jeter has dealt away his first major chunk of salary.

Man, I hate helping effin' Jeter.

Gordon will turn 30 in April, which generally isn't a good age for a speedster ... until we remember (because surely we remember) that Lou Brock set the single-season stolen base record in 1974 at age 34/35.

Gordon can also hit: He's got a .293 career average. What he doesn't do is walk (.329 career OBP) or hit for power (.367 career slugging). He's got 11 HRs in his career, 40 triples and only 90 doubles. That last is shocking. His best doubles season is 24: twice. I imagine we‘ll place him at the top of the lineup. But if he slumps at Safeco, as players have been known to do, we’re in trouble. 

That said, his WAR last season was 3.1, which is equal to Jean Segura‘s. And it’ll be nice to have some speed on the basepaths. Here's a highlight reel from a few years ago:

Play of the game: Rookie sensation Ben Gamel hits a two-out, two-strike, three-run homer to put the M's on top. 

Every March, a group of us get together to divvy up the season tickets for section 327, row 9, seats 13 and 14, to watch the Seattle Mariners play baseball at Safeco Field. That meeting, with jokes, cynicism, and baseball trivia flying, is often the best part of the season. The rest of it, after all, is the Mariners. Plus our section isn't exactly full of diehards. I don't think I've seen the same face more than twice. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the 327 seats have been scooped up by the secondary market, StubHub or something, because too often we wind up sitting next to fans of the opposing team. Last night included. 

From the start, it didn't look auspicious. For one, I hadn't really sought out anyone to go with. The only one I asked specifically was my friend Jeff, last minute, but he was a “Nah,” so instead I posted the following on my Facebook page:

Anyone interested in going to the Ms game with me tonight? 7 PM start. Forecast calls for high 60s, overcast, and with potential smoke from central Washington wildfires. The team has lost three in a row and is mostly out of the wildcard race, so we're fairly sure to extend our postseasonless streak to 16 years—best in the Majors. We're rooting just for pride now. On the plus side, you'll be w/me and my sunny personality. IM if interested. EOE.

I added:

Oh, and we're two games under .500.

And then:

Starting pitcher will be longtime fan favorite Mike Leake, whom we acquired eight days ago from St. Louis.

A career in sales doesn't await. No takers. Until Patricia was talking to Jeff's wife, Sullivan, and she said she'd go. Why not? So off we went, past the construction sites and homeless, through the wafts of ocassional marijuana smoke and the more pervasive wildfire variety, and down to Safeco. Sullivan turned out to be a great baseball game companion. I never had to worry about a lull in the conversation and I got to feel smart explaining how a slugging percentage is calculated.

Outside the park, I bought a Grand Salami with Ben Gamel on the cover. My friend Tim is production designer/art director for the magazine, and earlier he and me and some friends had wondered over cover lines. “Gamel's Got Game”? “Gamel's a Gamer”? “Hey Yankees: Thanks for Ben Gamel”? The publisher wound up going with the simpler “Ben Gamel: Rookie Sensation,” although, to be frank, Gamel hadn't been of late. Before the midseason All-Star break, he hit .323 with an .828 OPS; post break, it was .214 with a .586 OPS.

The game began inauspiciously: Single, double, single. We're down 2-0, nobody out, Justin Upton on first and Albert Pujols at the plate. “This guy,” I told Sullivan, “used to be the best hitter in baseball, and now he's one of the worst.” “Why is he still playing?” Sullivan wondered. As I was about to explain his rep, and his long-term deal, and the fact that even last year he was good, and there was hope he would still be, you know, Albert Pujols, he hit a grounder to third. Over to second and back to first for an easy double play. Albert was chugging barely halfway up the first-base line by the time it was complete. 

“He also has the all-time record for grounding into double plays,” I added. “Set it this year. Broke Cal Ripken's mark.” 

That DP turned out to be huge. In the top of the 5th, with two outs, the Angels' first baseman C.J. Cron hit a single, and I noticed it was only their fourth hit of the night. Meaning it was their first hit since the first three guys. After his initial yips, as Sullivan called them, Leake had settled down considerably. 

By this point we were also ahead, 4-2, on a two-out, three-run homer by Ben Gamel, our cover guy, in the 2nd; and a two-out, bases-loaded single by Mitch Haniger in the 3rd. That proved to be enough. Angels added a run in the 6th when Pujols hit a two-out single (a deep single) to plate Justin Upton. Pujols again started the 9th with a deep single to left. All of his deep singles looked like doubles to me, but then you'd see him chugging along the basepaths and knew he couldn't make it to second. (How he has 14 doubles on the season, I don't know.) In the 9th, he was replaced, of course, for a pinch runner, who stole second, but Edwin Diaz closed it out for us. A sudden win for my last scheduled game of the season. 

These are the M's pitchers I've seen start for us this year:

• Ariel Miranda (2)
• Yovani Gallardo (2)
• Andrew Moore (2)
• Dillon Overton
• Sam Gaviglio
• Marco Gonzales
• Mike Leake

It's amazing they went 6-4 when I was there. 

A highlight of the night for me was the National Anthem, performed by Mike McCready of Pearl Jam in rockin' Jimi Hendrix/electric guitar fashion, which apparently he does semi-regularly. Seattle may not have any pennants above the right-field bleachers but we got that.

Second pitch. Pay attention, girls. 

Is it possible for even the most gung-ho fan to keep track of Mariners starting pitching anymore? This was our rotation at the beginning of the year:

1. Felix Hernandez
2. Hisashi Iwakuma
3. James Paxton
4. Ariel Miranda
5. Yovani Gallardo

Now?

1. Felix Hernandez (DL: 10)
2. Hisashi Iwakuma (DL: 60)
3. James Paxton (DL: 10)
4. Ariel Miranda
5. Yovani Gallardo
6. Erasmo Ramirez? (traded for: July 28)
7. Andrew Albers? (purchased: Aug. 12)
8. Marco Gonzales? (traded for: July 21)

Iwakuma lasted just six starts (I never got to see him), Felix a lucky 13 (I never got to see him) and Paxton, who became our ace, 20 (yeah, never saw him, either).

All in all, we've had 16 pitchers start games this season. I've seen Miranda twice, Gallardo twice, and Andrew Moore, who made his Major League debut in June and was sent back to the minors in July, twice. I was there for Dillon Overton's only start in May (he lasted 3 1/3; he's now with San Diego), one of Sam Gaviglio's starts (he's had 11, the most for any of the non-five), and yesterday, against Baltimore, before the M's roadtrip for the rest of August, I was there with my friend Andy on a sunny Wednesday afternoon to see Marco Gonzales make his third start for the team since being acquired from St. Louis in late July. Previously he'd lasted 4 innings against KC and 4 1/3 against the Angels. The hope was he'd go longer. 

It didn't look good at the outset. O's shortstop Tim Beckham sent Marco's second pitch into the right-field bleachers. Then he settled down, the M's scored some runs—chiefly on new acquisiton Yonder Alonso's first homer as an M—and Marco took a 3-1 lead into the 5th. He needed just two outs to have his longest outing since Sept. 14, 2014, when he went 5 2/3 for St. Louis against Colorado. He got the first out fast: Chris Davis went swinging. This was followed by a single, a single, a wild pitch, a triple, a single, a single, and there went that chance. It's all Scott Servais could stands, he could stands no more. In came Tony Zych—the last word in M's relief. He got the next two guys and ultimately the win.

It wasn't a bad game. They had the lead, we tied it and took it; then they tied it and took it. In the bottom of the 5th, the M's scored 3 right back again (single, HBP, single, pop out, single, single, single, double play), then tacked on another in the 6th on Leonys Martin's solo shot to make it 7-4. In the 9th, with this cushiest of closer leads, fireballer Edwin Diaz came in and ... couldn't find the plate. Three walks in a row to load the bases. Then Manny Machado hit a sac fly (speared by Martin, nicely, in right center), and Schoop struck out, and he seemed nearly out of it. Until he hit the next two guys with pitches. That made it 7-6, bases loaded, and Servais went to the pen again. For Marc Rzepczynski. Who, as if to show Diaz how it's done, struck out Chris Davis on three pitches. Happy walk home. 

A week ago, when the M's were the second team in the wild-card hunt, the game might've felt important. But that was before the M's five-game losing streak, mostly to the Angels. No one can seem to hold onto that second wild card spot, can they? The Royals surged, claimed it, then fell back. Same, at various times, with the Rays, M's, Twins. Now it's the Angels turn. Even the Rangers are still in the hunt. The M's are just 1.5 back, but with three teams between them and the golden (brass/tin) ring, and with this rotation made up of wire and chewing gum, which is why nothing yesterday felt particularly urgent. Andy and I talked about a recent trip he'd made to the Olympic peninsula, politics, of course (to vent, more anything), and Charlottesville. We chatted up a wedding party seated next to us—half of them were from Balmer—then met up with our friend Paige, who had taken her boy and two of his friends to the game and were sitting 30 rows back of the M's dugout. Paige, a big Seahawks fan, didn't get that 9th inning, but that's baseball. It's certainly M's baseball. 

It was my ninth game at Safeco this year. They're 5-4.