Seattle Mariners posts

Good news! Per the headline, “MLB expands direct-to-consumer streaming options, now has 26 teams available.” 

And now the bad news for fans like me in the Pac NW:

The four teams that cannot be watched direct-to-consumer include the two broadcast by Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals, as well as the Houston Astros (Space City Home Network) and Seattle Mariners (Root Sports).

Which makes me think of a different good news/bad news joke. The bad new is the Seattle Mariners are the only franchise in Major League Baseball that hasn't won a pennant—and don't seem to be trying to rectify this historical embarrassment. The good news is you can't watch them.

“The fact that [the Mariners] missed the playoffs by one game, and didn't go out and add an impact bat or two when you have the best pitching staff in baseball, just seems absurd to me. There's never going to be a better time in the history of that franchise to have added a couple of bats to make a run than this year. And they missed it.

”I thought Alonso was a slam-dunk. How can you not go after him? You kidding me?... Honestly, as much as I wanted to be back there, if I was the only piece they brought back in, I would be saying the same thing: What the hell are we doing? Are you trying? There's not going to a better time to go for it. So I don't know what they're doing. I'm very confused. It's a head-scratcher for me.“

-- 2024 Mariners infielder (and LA Dodgers legend) Justin Turner, now with the Cubs, during spring training

100%. Amen. Ditto. The only thing I disagree with is the ”not a better time to go for it" line. There was: 1993-97, say. Back then they didn't need an impact bat but an impact arm. They needed a bullpen that didn't blow up on us. They needed a few missing pieces to go with the Hall of Fame calibre guys they had but couldn't be bothered to go get them. That's why there are no pennants flapping in right field at Mariners Park. But otherwise, god yes, to everything.

I guess there's another part of the statement I disagree with: It's not really a head-scratcher. The Mariners front office has always been this way.

The team so shite they named it twice. Not the Mariners, by the way, the team we're playing at the end of March.

I get it, they're rootless. They were in Oakland, they're eventually supposed to be in Vegas, for now (I guess?) it's Sacramento. But c'mon, Marketing, choose a city. Athletics Athletics is just dumb. Or maybe it wasn't even a decision. Maybe no one's at the wheel. Increasingly how life feels. (Unless the people at the wheel are psychopaths; also how life feels.)

The absurdity of “Athletics Athletics” isn't far removed from the absurdity of this overall message, which was received yesterday by M's season ticket holders—welcoming back a second baseman on the wrong side of 30 who's on a downward cycle. Last year, for us, Jorge Polanco scraped together a .213/.296/.355 season, and he was worse at home. Right now the AL West is weak, the American League generally is the weaker league, so it's a helluva opportunity for a franchise that has never won, say, a pennant—who may even be the only team in Major League Baseball to never win a pennant—to finally go for it. That would be a great message for its fanbase. This message is saying the opposite of that. It's what we're stuck with.

That's the truer slogan: “The 2025 Seattle Mariners: What We're Stuck With.”

Earlier this week, CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner and Ichiro Suzuki were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. First-timer Sabathia got nearly 87%, final-timer Wagner got 82%, and first-timer Ichiro came one vote short of being the first position player to be elected unanimously. He joins the 99-percenter club, those guys who have gotten north of 99% of the vote:

• Ken Griffey Jr.
• Mariano Rivera
• Derek Jeter
• Ichiro

What's interesting about that list besides its recency bias? Two of the players went in as Yankees, the franchise with the most pennants in baseball history (41), while the other two went in as Seattle Mariners, the franchise with the fewest pennants in baseball history (goose egg). It's the feast and famine contingent. When I mentioned the observation to my father the other day, and added, “I don't think it means anything,” he said, “It means you've been lucky. You got to see some of the best baseball players in the world.” True. And they, sadly, didn't get to see the World Series. Ichiro got to the ALCS twice, first with the 116-win Mariners but got knocked out in five by the Jeter- and Rivera-led Yanks, and then with the 2012 Yanks, who lost to Detroit. Griffey famously eschewed putting on pinstripes, and saw one LCS, in '95 against Cleveland, after helping eliminate the Yankees in the LDS. He had a helluva postseason that year: .300/.400/.500 against the Indians, .300/.400/1.000 against the Yanks. After that it was just dribbles: poor showings in the LDS in '97 and '08 (w/the White Sox).

The HOF news sent me scurrying back to the archives to see what I'd written about Ichiro. Once upon a time I wrote the player profiles for the alternative fan magazine “The Grand Salami,” and here's excerpts about #51 from his rookie year. 

April 2001 issue (written pre-season)
Ichiro comes to the M's with a bit of fanfare and a playing record whose numerological significance seems something out of folklore. You've heard of 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. How does .353 translate into English? We hope well.
 
May 
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 to help win the game. Four days later against Texas, he 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? 

June
If Ichiro was enjoying his relative anonymity in the U.S. after years of being hounded in Japan, well, he's certainly screwing up a good thing. Not two months into the season and he's already broken the consecutive game hitting streak for Mariner rookies twice. In fact, the word “streak,” with its implication of variability (i.e., a “streaky” hitter), hardly applies to what Ichiro's doing, because there's rarely a game when he doesn't get a hit. As of this writing, he's on pace to break the Major League record of 257 set by George Sisler in 1920. 

August
It's been a helluva ride so far: hitting streaks, laser beam throws, game-saving catches and homeruns, triples and stolen bases, the cover of Sports Illustrated, the cover of the All-Star program, and, perhaps the greatest honor of all, the cover of The Grand Salami twice. The best players in the world came to Seattle in July and the focus was this guy. Ah, but then his first real bump in the road. From April to June, he hit safely in all but six games. In July alone (and July isn't over as we write this) he went hitless in nine games. We're betting that July bump-in-the-road will be forgotten by the time you're reading this in August. 

September
The last time we were writing Ichiro's profile he was in the midst of a July skid and wound up hitting only .268 for the month. Whispers abounded. They've got that short season in Japan. He's not used to playing a long season. Pitchers are starting to figure him out. Then on July 21 he got a base hit against Minnesota, and afterwards the hits kept coming: 11 games in a row until he went 0-1 as a pinch-hitter in Detroit; then 13 games in a row (and counting). And not just any hits, mind you. Rally starters. Game winners. Has there ever been such a clutch guy? With runners in scoring position, he's hitting .491.

October
Here's a question from the April issue: “How does .353 (Ichiro's career batting average in Japan) translate into English?” Ichiro didn't take long to answer that one. He's the likely A.L. batting champion, Rookie-of-the-Year, and a marketing dream. So how does .353 translate into English? It translates to about ... .353.

The Mariners now have three players repping them in Cooperstown: Griffey, Ichiro, Edgar. Not a bad trio. Might King Felix join them someday? This is his first year on the ballot and he got 20% of the vote, and his advanced numbers are short. The good news is no great pitchers are coming through the transom for another four or five years, so he might pick up the slack. He's certainly beloved. He's got the Cy and the perfect game and the 2500+ Ks. Hell, I'd put him in just for the “This is my house!” moment.

After Felix, though, is there anyone? Jamie Moyer via vet committee? For his good works and longevity? Nelson Cruz for ditto? Julio if he ever becomes Julio? I'm grasping at straws here. I really don't see anyone. And now I'm curious if Ichiro might be the last Seattle Mariner I ever see inducted in the Hall of Fame in my lifetime.

Except for a makeup doubleheader this afternoon between the Mets and Braves (currently tied for the second wild card spot with identical 88-72 records), the 2024 regular season is now over. Amazing things happened: things that have never happened (50-50) or rarely (Jarren Duran leading the league in doubles + triples). But one thing remained dully the same. 

This is a list of teams with the best record in the American League who fell short of the postseason:

• 2020: Seattle Mariners
• 2021: Toronto Blue Jays (Mariners second)
• 2022: Baltimore Orioles (Mariners make the postseason for the first time since 2001!!!)
• 2023: Seattle Mariners
• 2024: Seattle Mariners

Cue Seinfeld: “Of all the losers, you came in first—of that group. You're the No. 1 ... loser.”

The world's biggest pop star when the Mariners last won. (Paul Skenes photo unavailable.)

The Seattle Mariners led the AL West for much of the summer, shockingly, since they were not that good, but everyone else in the division was even worse. Until they weren't. Until the Astros started Astroing and took over the lead again in ... was it August? I guess July and August. Just Googled it and got this via Daniel Kramer at MLB.com:

The Mariners carried a 10-game lead atop the AL West entering June 19 before squandering it on July 19 in just 24 games, the shortest span — by far, per Elias — for any team to lose a double-digit lead in the divisional era (since 1969). A more elongated stretch of struggles pushed Seattle from occupying sole possession of a playoff spot since Aug. 7.

And last night, the Astros clinched—for the seventh time in eight seasons—and fittingly against the Mariners. Care to guess who won the division the time the Astros didn't? It was 2019, 'Stros were wild card and wound up in the World Series, but the division winner was ... the Oakland A's. Soon to be Vegas or Sacramento A's. Or Portland A's? That would make way more sense but MLB is into the gambling these days. There's no addiction they won't push on fans already addicted to baseball.

Anyway, while figuring out the A's answer, I came across this Wiki page on the AL West and its winners: all that strata, all those epochs. I could go into the usual on how much time has passed since the Mariners last won it in 2001: eggs cost this, Kamala Harris worked for the city attorney in San Fran, Taylor Swift was 11, Paul Skenes was in utero. The Astros weren't even in the division at the time, and wouldn't be for another 10+ years. Meanwhile, the A's were being followed by Michael Lewis, and the Angels were just beginning their phase of going through about 12 name changes before deciding on ... I can't even remember. The Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles in California?

Here, let's just focus on the stats since 2002. It ain't pretty:

* since 2013 

Seriously, heads in Seattle should be rolling. Like 10 years ago.

My favorite bit on the Poscast the other day was this exchange:

Joe: [After updating us on the rise of the Astros, the fall of the Mariners, and the general lousiness of Mariners hitting] So the Mariners are playing for their playoff lives, and ... Man, is this going to happen again? Are the Mariners going to just fall short AGAIN?
Mike: Yeah.

It's the way Michael Schur says it—with a “no duh” quality to his voice: “Isn't it obvious? Are you an idiot? What happened to my smart friend Joe?” And the chef's kiss is that Mike's answer was immediately echoed, in the exact same tone, by their guest Justin Halpern, who is a showrunner for the TV series “Abbott Elementary” and a big San Diego Padres fan. 

This has been a theme throughout the year, by the way. Joe keeps pushing for the M's and the M's keep disappointing. Basically the M's are Joe's fetch. He keeps trying to make them happen. And yeah, they're not happening. 

As if to underscore this point, M's manager Scott Servais was fired by the club today. Don't know if other heads will roll. They should. As I said earlier this month, fire the hitting instruction team up and down the org. Whatever hitting philosophy we have, it's a bad one. 2024 numbers:

• Batting average: .216 (30th of 30 teams)
• OBP: .301 (26th)
• SLG: .365 (29th)
• Hits: 903 (30th)
• Doubles: 170 (29th)
• Triples: 12 (28th)
• Ks: 1,308 (1st)

We're also middle of the road in homers (15th). Basically the only good thing we're good at is walks: 5th-best there. We walk a lot, strike out a ton, barely put the ball in play. All walks and many Ks make the M's a dull team.

Interestingly, Halpern is on the Poscast because of the surprising resurgence of his team, who are the opposite of that. They're fun. Someone in the Poscast described them as akin to the 2014-15 KC Royals: a team that doesn't strike out, doesn't walk, puts the ball in play. Amen! I've been waiting for another 2014-15 Royals team to cheer on. Maybe this year's Padres are it. 

When the Servais news broke I immediately texted my friend Tim, who responded with this touching eulogy, borne of watching Servais mismanage the ballclub for the past nine years: “About fucking time.” 

Former Mariners catcher Dan Wilson is purportedly taking over. He has no experience as a big-league coach or a manager at any level. At the same time, he doesn't seem like a bad choice.

ADDENDUM: Hitting instructor Jarret DeHart was also let go and will be replaced by Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez. Per Wiki, DeHart was promoted to M's hitting coach and director of hitting strategy on November 15, 2021. M's team batting averages under his tenure: .230 (27th), .242 (22nd), .216 (30th).

• Tim's take 
• Poz's take

“Why is our DH hitting .212?”

That was my friend Evan at the Mariners game last night. 

I looked up at the scoreboard. “That's Cal Raleigh. He's our catcher normally. He's leading the team in homers.”

“Oh. So it makes sense.”

“Yes. Also, one of the last times I was here? Our DH was Mitch Garver.”

Evan scanned the scoreboard. “.166.”

“I think he was about .176 then.”

So it goes for M's fans. 

Last night was my first M's game since the trade deadline—when we picked up Randy Arozarena, ALCS MVP with the Rays in 2020; and ginger bear gay icon Justin Turner, NLCS MVP in 2017. Turner turns 40 in November and is no longer the .300/.400/.500 guy he was but he's a better hittter than most current Mariners. Arozarena, at 25, set the world on fire in the 2020 postseason, with OPSes above 1.000 at all four stages, along with slashing a .364/.462/.773 line in the World Series. The next year he was Rookie of the Year and the world seemed his oyster. And then not so much. He's a .200/.300/.400 guy, and this season was .200/.300/.300 with the Rays when we picked him up. But again, better than what we got. I was excited to see them. 

In the bottom of the 4th, shortly after Evan asked me about our DH, Arozarena reached on an infield single and that .212 DH went deep to cut the Tigers' lead to 3-2. That was fun. Turns out that was our fun. Garver doubled with two outs in the 5th, Arozarena and Turner spaced their walks between three Mariner outs in the 6th, we went 1-2-3 in the 7th. In the 8th, still 3-2, Arozarena doubled with two outs and then Raleigh drove one to the deepest part of the park, over the centerfield wall, but the Tigers' Parker Meadows brought it back. (Kid, next time show the ball, don't leave us all on tenterhooks.) That would've given us the lead. Instead, top nine, Scott Servais trotted out Jonathan Hernandez, whom we'd selected off waivers from the Texas Rangers on August 2, and he couldn't find the plate: walk, walk. Then he could: fly out to deep left, both runners move up. Single to plate the first. New reliever. Thornton. K. SB. Single to plate two. Now it was 6-2. Evan had smartly already left, and I soon followed. What I missed? Two more singles and a play at the plate to nail the runner for the third out. Bottom nine, Turner led off with a single, was erased in a Jorge Polanco DP, and perennial .200 hitter Dylan Moore struck out swinging. So I didn't miss anything.

Newbie M's shortstop Leo Rivas made a nice over-the-shoulder grab on a shallow popup in the 7th. I liked that. But it continues to be dispiriting. Julio is still injured, J.P. is still injured. The crowd was sparse. Because of the debacle last time, I arrived early and ate stadium food. Maybe that was their strategy all along.

This was our third loss in a row and it knocked us out of first place in the AL West (again), a spot we didn't deserve. We're three games over .500, +18 run differential, exact middle in the AL in terms of record: 8th of 15 teams. We have the second-worst batting average in the Majors, .217, and only the truly abysmal Chicago White Sox at .216 keep us from last place. Third worst? The A's at .230. Bit of a gap. That's how bad we are. Last night, our new guys went 3-6 with two walks while the rest of the M's lineup went 2-25 with no walks. I guess Turner and Arozarena just haven't learned Mariners baseball yet.

I usually don't go to two Mariners games in a week, and certainly not from the same series, but Tim had an extra ticket Monday to see the Angels, and when I accepted I forgot I already had a ticket to Wednesday's getaway game against the Angels.

The sad part was how shockingly similar the games were. 

Monday night, the M's squeaked a run across in the first, Bryce Miller pitched seven shutout innings, but the Angels pushed across one in the eighth and two in the ninth and won 3-1.

Wednesday afternoon, the M's got a run off a Mitch Haniger homer in the second, Luis Castillo pitched six shutout innings, but the Angels pushed across two in the eighth and won 2-1.

Some thoughts from the series:

• The M's scored one run each game against the team with the second-worst ERA in the Majors. (Only Colorado, for obvious reasons, allows more runs.) What happens when the team with the second-worst ERA in the Majors meets the team with the worst batting average in the Majors? Now we know.
• The M's starting pitchers gave up a total of one earned run, combined, over three games. And we still got swept. 
• Yesterday the Rockies beat the Red Sox 20-7 and an M's fan posted that the Rockies scored more runs in that one game than the M's scored in all of July. It's not correct, I checked, but it feels correct.

I showed up late to the Wednesday game and left early. I showed up late because of work and I left early because it was a huge crowd and I didn't feel like fighting them to see a bunch of .220 hitters that I don't even know strike out or pop out. I was also still angry. I figured arriving late (top of the second) would mean a quicker entry but it was the opposite. I arrived to lines stretching down the block. Both blocks. It was insane. It was chaos. Weekday afternoon games used to be calm affairs but the M's org seems to be selling cheaply to tons of groups, particularly kids groups (they were very obedient when the scoreboard told them to make noise). Which is fine. The M's should be selling cheaply to kids groups. They're the future. But then hire enough people so you can funnel them through. I don't care if everyone shows up at the same time, it's your job—M's management—to anticipate this and ameliorate the situation. But the situation was so bad when I arrived, so seemingly hopeless, that I repaired, as they say, across the street to a bar for a drink. I saw Haniger's homer on TV. I didn't sit down at the stadium until the bottom of the third. 

Meaning I watched four innings and saw nobody score. Some of it was just bad luck. Bottom four, Jorge Polanco led off with a double, Haniger followed with a walk, and Jason Vosler (who???) singled over the second baseman's glove to load the bases. Up stepped Tyler Locklear (who???). Per the scoreboard, he'd struck out swinging his first time up. “Don't strike out!” I shouted. He didn't. He ground into a double play. That was the bad luck. It was a bullet down the third base line, but Luis Rengifo (who???) gloved it, stepped on the bag, and threw home to get Polanco. Then Luke Raley struck out swinging to end the rally.

And so it went. Bottom five, leadoff walk that never advanced. Bottom six, leadoff walk eliminated in DP. Bottom seven, one-out single followed by two Ks. Maybe M's management did me a favor by keeping me from the park for three innings.

Tim and I played a game within the game at Mariners Park last night: Could we find a fan in stands who was wearing the jersey of a player—Mariners or Angels—who was actually on the field? 

Most Angels fans wore the jersey of Mike Trout, who's been MIA most of the season—and most of most recent seasons. He hasn't played 130+ games since 2019. On the field, in his stead, and the stead of Shohei Ohtani, the star of stars who fled for the other So Cal team last off-season, were a lot of .220 hitters whose very names sounded hopeless. Neto, as in young shortstop Zach, sounds like a compression of “Net zero”; Schanuel, as in young first baseman Nolan, sounds like something you'd say if you disagreed that Charlie Manuel was the best Phillies manager of all time (Manuel Schanuel); while Drury, as in journeyman Brandon, aptly described last night's weather: overcast and chilly after several weeks of 80 degrees and blue skies. I think eventually we saw a kid wearing an O'Hoppe jersey, as in Logan, as in their catcher leading the team in hitting with a .277 BA and .800 OPS. Smart kid. No other choice, really, except maybe their starter for the game: All-Star selectee Tyler Anderson, whose record was a very Angels 8-8.

On the Mariners side, we caught the usual Griffey 24s and Ichiro 51s, though the most popular continued to be Julio 44, who is having an off-season, or maybe an off-career, and anyway was out with an ankle sprain from the day before. MRIs had been announced. Walking in, we saw a few Ty France jerseys, possibly worn in protest, since he was waived earlier in the day, and nearby we saw a few J.P. Crawford jerseys. At least he started the game. In fact he scored its first run—after being hit by a pitch in the bottom of the first that got him pulled from the game in the top of the second. By the time we played our game, he was no longer on the field. (Update: hairline pinkie fracture for J.P.; probably a stint on the IL.)

I'll cut to the chase: the dude on the field with the most fans in the stands wearing his jersey was probably Cal Raleigh, Mariners catcher, currently leading the team in homeruns (20) and RBI (62). Not many other options. Mitch Garver? Dylan Moore? Jorge Polanco? The game-within-the-game demonstrated both past glory and current paucity for both teams.

As did the game. Tim called it the most Mariners game of all. We got seven shutout innings from starter Bryce Miller, who left with a 1-0 lead. The reliever they brought in? Ryne “Time to Panic” Stanek, who walked the Angels' #9 hitter on four pitches, walked the Angels' leadoff hitter on five pitches, then, on a 3-2 pitch, got Schanuel for a called third strike that was so iffy it got Schanuel tossed from the game. At this point, the M's went to the 'pen again for ace All-Star closer Andres Munoz, who looked a bit shaky himself. Worse, Angels pulled off a double steal, Turner Ward hit a long fly to center, and the game was suddenly tied.

Were we doomed to extras? No, thank god. Top of the ninth, M's reliever Trent Thornton promptly retired the first two batters, then promptly walked the next two, allowing #9 hitter (but oddly their top RBI man) Jo Adell to lace a single to center to put them on top. Trying to nab runner #1, mayhem ensued, allowing runner #2 to score as well. It was the most exciting play of the game.

And in the bottom of the ninth for the M's? After Cal Raleigh flied out, the next two guys up were Mitch Garver and Dylan Moore, both of whom, I shit you not, had already completed baseball's ignominious hattrick: each had struck out three times. In the ninth, Garver managed a fly out but Moore came through for us: he struck out to end the game. Fourpeat.

Tim thinks the hitting coaches up and down the Mariners organization need to be fired, and he's not wrong. We're currently last in the Majors in team batting, with a .217 average, two points behind the dismal Chicago White Sox. We're also first in strikeouts with 1,052, nearly 100 ahead of the second-place A's. Not a good combo. I returned home to find out that Teoscar Hernandez, who underperformed for us last season, and was a starting All-Star for the LA Dodgers this season, drove in all three runs in a 3-2 Dodgers victory over the SF Giants. How refreshing. Not drury at all.

“Walks it off”: A nubber to the pitcher and an errant throw.

I found myself rooting for the Twins.

I spent most of June in Minnesota visiting my 92-year-ol father in M. Hospital or R. Hospital, where he was trying to recover from a stroke, and during that time we watched a lot of Twins games so I got to know them a bit. Meanwhile, I kind of lost track of my M's. Were they still in first place in the AL West? Apparently so. Nine games over .500. Had Julio become Julio again? No, he hadn't. And we still weren't hitting? No, we weren't. Pre-game, we were 29th of 30 teams in batting average, 25th in OBP, 25th in SLG. Among our regulars, Julio led in batting with a .252 average. We had pitching and not much else.

Meanwhile, the Twins had this kid, Royce Lewis, who couldn't sneeze without hitting a homerun. A few weeks back I checked and his SLG was .900. .900! For slugging. Barry Bonds looks at that and goes WTF? Twins also had superstar shortstop Carlos Correa who was beautiful to watch. Everyone on the field is a top tier athlete but some guys are just top top-tier and he was one of those. He made everything look smooth. I remember watching an at-bat in Minnesota where the ball landed in front of homeplate and Correa reached down and flipped it to the catcher in one smooth motion. The day before yesterday, I got worried when in the late innings of a Twins shellacking of Arizona, Correa got pegged in the forearm, grimaced, shook his forearm, and immediately walked off the field. He was injury prone but was finally coming back from all that. He was having a helluva June. So was he down again? No. Not a fracture. His hand went numb but feeling returned in the Twins locker room and he said he'd be in the lineup the next day, which was last night. He was. 

I went with my wife Patricia. We got there slightly late—Correa was already on first with a one-out single—which meant we'd missed the first round of boos. I should've anticipated that. I was loving Correa now but he'd been on the 2017 Houston Astros, who cheated by stealing signs with high-tech gear and sent signals via trash-can lids, and Mariners fans, and pretty much all fans, continued to boo the stars of that team. Even a guy like Kyle Tucker, who wasn't on the '17 squad, who didn't make his MLB debut until July 2018 and didn't play a full season until 2021, even he gets booed like he's Simon Legree. So it goes. Me, I'm already passed it. Plus it's boring. So when the M's faithful booed Correa lustily in his next at-bat, I took the opposite tack: I cheered lustily. I cheered even louder when, in the top of the sixth, with the M's ahead 1-0, Correa hit a 2-run homer into the bullpen in left field. The only one who said anything was a Twins fan sitting behind me. He looked confused, pointing to my M's cap. Yeah, long story, pal.

Correa, by the way, was the only guy on either team with an average north of .300, but the Twins had five guys with averages better than Julio's, which, again, is the best on the M's. Just embarassing. Our leadoff hitter (J.P. Crawford) was near .200, our No. 3 hitter (Cal Raleigh) just scaped above .200, while our cleanup hitter (Mitch Garver) was significantly below .200. Again, we're 29th of 30. Thank god for the White Sox.

Mariners Park was packed for the first time in a long time. Because they'd just gotten back from a successful road trip? No, they'd gone 3-6 against the Guardians, Marlins and Rays. Because it was J.P. Crawford bobblehead night? Maybe. It was also Filipino Heritage Night, so that helped. It helped make it a rare midsummer sellout. Just when I didn't want to be near people.

After Correa's homer, the M's went down 1-2-3 in the sixth and seventh, but in the bottom of the eighth they got the first two guys on via walk and single. Then bobblehead guy J.P. tried to bunt but popped it up to third. Then Julio hit a slow roller to third, which Twins third baseman Jose Miranda, cousin to Lin Manuel, rushed a throw to first, which first baseman Carlos Santana tried to dig out but couldn't. A run scored and the game was tied. It stayed that way until the bottom of the tenth when we scored our ghost runner on a groundout to short (moving him to third) and a nubber back to the pitcher, whose hurried throw home sailed past the catcher. So we won on two errant throws. So it goes.

The weather was nice anyway.

The man who thought the M's would be great this year—or, more accurately, wanted the M's to be great this year—has cooled on them a bit. From Joe Posnanski's SubStack the other day, “Who's Winning (and Losing), and Why,” in which he went over each division and gave us what, where and why as of May 14:

American League West
Leading: Seattle (23-19)

Why they're winning: They're not exactly winning, but they're in first place because they're getting some good starting pitching—this team has the second-best strikeout-to-walk ratio in the league—and they're taking most of the close games. With the early emergence of Bryce Miller, to go along with Luis Castillo, Logan Gilbert and George Kirby, this does look like one of the best four-man rotations in the league. But the offense: Bleh. They're 13th in the league in runs scored and are striking out more than any team. We keep waiting for Julio Rodriguez to ignite.

Confidence level: Medium, I guess. The offense has to get better, I would think, and that starting rotation is stout. Still, the Rangers seem to have a lot more firepower.

His “Confidence level” is how confident he is they'll stay in that position. I'm with him. The offense has to get better. The Mariners are currently 25th in the Majors in team batting, 21st in team OPS. We're first in strikeouts and 19th in walks. Ninth in homers, we're dead last in doubles, with 52 on the season, which is nine away from the next team, so not even close. What is it the M's do? We hit poorly but occasionally hit it out. And our pitching is good. That's neither a formula for success or excitement.

And the crowd went wild

The announced attendance last night was 14,984 but it felt way sparser than that. It felt like a mid-September game: starting temps in the low 60s dropping into the chilly 50s as the game went on; a handful of fans trying to amuse themselves with scoreboard antics or hydro races; two teams with nowhere players going nowhere fast.

Both teams are actually doing well. Or well-ish. The Mariners, predicted to win the West by some, are in fact in first place in the AL West (by half a game at gamestart), while the Royals, whom nobody predicted to go anywhere, are third in the AL Central but with a better record: 25-17 vs. 22-19. So why wasn't there more excitement?

On the M's side, it's partly that record. We're only in first because everyone else in the division is falling on their faces. We're like the normal guy at the klutz convention, but no one is mistaking us for Fred Astaire. It's also our offense—or lack of it. Halfway through the game, our second baseman and No. 3 hitter Jorge Polanco had to leave with a hamstring pull, and in the reshuffling the new third baseman, Luis Urias, wound up in the three spot. I nudged my friend Tim. “Look at that. Means we have a No. 3 hitter batting below .200.” Then I realized the awful truth. “I guess we began the game that way, didn't we?” In fact three of our starters were below Mendoza: Polanco and the two Mitches—Haniger and Garver—while seven of our starting nine were hitting below .250, and one of those, supposed star Julio Rodriguez, was barely that. In the game he went 1-4 with a single and now sports a .255/.309/.321 line, for a .630 OPS. I know he's a slow starter (a year ago he was at .214/.280./403), but all of that helps account for the meh reaction. This is a meh team. The Mariners are 25th in the Majors in batting (.226) and OBP (.302). The reason we're first in the West is because our starting pitching is superlative: No. 1 in the Majors in quality starts, No. 1 in WHIP, sixth in ERA.

Last night, starter George (“Summer of George!”) Kirby was shaky in the early going. With one out, Bobby Witt Jr. dunked a single to right, then Kirby seemed to lose control: he plunked the next two guys to load the bases. A mound visit seemed to do good for a change: he struck out the next guy, Michael Massey, on three pitches, then got a 6-3 to end the inning. But after two innings he'd thrown 43 pitches and you figured he wasn't long for the game. Except he turned it around. He had a couple of 1-2-3, throwing just 10 and 7 pitches, and he left after seven, ahead 4-0. He threw more than 100 pitches. Can't remember the last guy I saw who threw more than 100 pitches.

Our big bat was Lonesome Luke Raley, a 29-year-old left fielder acquired in the off-season from Tampa Bay, who hit a 2-run homer to dead center in the 2nd. He's an upswing guy—in that last year was his best year by far. He's the opposite of what Jerry DiPoto keeps doing with second base: getting one-time All-Stars who've had bad seasons, thinking they can turn it around. That was Kolten Wong in 2023, Polanco now. In our resumed SubStack the other day, Tim and I went over the black hole that was left field for the 1990s Seattle Mariners and last night we agreed that's now second base. Here are our main second-baggers playing opposite J.P. Crawford for the past few years, along with their OPSes:

• 2024: Jorge Polanco, .606
• 2023: Kolten Wong, .468; Jose Caballero, .663
• 2022: Adam Frazier, .612
• 2021: Abraham Toro, .695
• 2020: Shed Long, Jr., .533
• 2019: Dee Gordon, .663

So Abraham Toro was the high point. Who knew?

M's got two more runs in the 3rd, stringing three singles along. It should've been two singles and a double but when Cal Raleigh's deep drive to center went off the fielder's glove, Polanco, who'd been on first, wasn't ready to run, and could only get to second, stymying Raleigh. Maybe that's when he pulled the hammy? With his bad baserunning? Either way, after Lonesome Luke plated another, it stayed 4-0 until the 8th, when both teams got two: theirs off reliever Ryne “Time to panic” Stanek, ours when Tyrus Raymond France dunked a long fly into the left-field bleachers.

To me, the best-looking player of the game was Bobby Witt, Jr., who went only 1-4 but seemed everywhere: going first to third, running everything out, and with wheels. Right now he's hitting .304/.369/.518, and he's second in the Majors in WAR to Mookie Betts. Those are big boy numbers. Ah yes, I remember them well.

Pinch-hitting for Superman

The last time I saw Chris Sale pitch in person was in July 2017. He was tall and lean and calm, and he dealt with the Mariners at Safeco Field rather handily: 3 hits over 7 innings, one walk, 11 Ks. It was his 13th victory that season—his first season with the Red Sox after seven with the White Sox—and the 87th of his super-promising young career.

Wednesday afternoon I saw him again, a 35-year-old in a Braves uniform, and his interim, like a lot of ours, hasn't exactly been stellar. I guess 37-27 is nothing to sneeze at, but it's over 6+ seasons, which rounds out to about 6-4 per, and that's including a pretty good romp in 2018 when he went 12-4. Injuries, of course, a way-too-common contemporary baseball storyline, are the reason. But is he back? Wednesday he handled the Mariners well enough, allowing 1 run over 5 innings, with zero walks and 9 strikeouts, as the Braves avoided a sweep with a 5-2 victory. He's now 4-1 on the season with a 3.44 ERA and a 0.95 WHIP. More power to him. I miss the days when the best pitchers in baseball stuck around for more than a few years. 

The Mariners, for their part, threw out 24-year-old Emerson Hancock for the ninth start of his career, but a lot of that five-spot wasn't his fault. Yes, he kept walking guys. In fact, in the 1st, the Braves didn't even put the ball in play: K, BB, BB, K, K. I yelled: TRUST THE GUYS BEHIND YOU! Bad advice, it turned out. The game got away from us in the 4th, when, with one out, shortstop Orlando Arcia lofted a high popup into shallow right, and three guys converged. It was RF Mitch Haniger's, but for some reason he didn't seem to be tracking it well, and the ball plopped out of his glove for a two-base error. It was as close to a Charlie Brown moment as you'll see at the professional level. If he'd caught it, Hancock would've had a 1-2-3 inning. Instead, with two outs, Ronald Acuna Jr. singled to left and Arcia scored from second. Then Ozzie Albies singled. Then Austin Riley tripled over Haniger's head—a tougher play, but another where he got his glove on the ball—and that was it for Emerson.

Hancock wasn't stellar but a lot of the loss belongs to Haniger. Besides the Charlie Brown play, he went 0-5 with three strikeouts, and now his season line is down to .217/.278/.368. Mid-April, he was .300/.382/.500. Since April 17, he's got four hits in 41 at-bats. Ouch. Is he injured? Either way, should he be batting second, Scott Servais?

I went to the game with my friend Tim, never a Servais fan, who noticed that the Braves kept tossing left-handers at us: Sale, Dylan Lee, A.J. Minter. And then in the 8th, they tapped rightie Joe Jimenez to face our 6-8 guys, none of whom are hitting above .200, and who bat rightie, rightie, and switch. Tim assumed it was a good time for a lefty pinch-hitter like Josh Rojas, who's been knocking the cover off the ball. Which is exactly what happened. For the switch-hitter. 

“Does that make any sense?” Tim asked the air.

“Maybe he's weaker from the left side?” I offered.

And he is: .211. But the others aren't exactly great shakes against righties, either: .218, .197. Plus the switch-hitter was EL.com favorite Sam Haggerty, he of the “Godfather” walkup music, who made a nice Superman catch earlier in the game. Now that I think about it, so did the No. 6 guy, Dylan Moore, our shortstop. The Braves did blister the ball. I guess we were lucky it was only 5-2. 

Bryce, Bryce, baby. 

Well, that's a little better. 

Two weeks ago, I attended my first Mariners game of the season, an 8-0 drubbing at the hands of Cleveland, in which our D kept booting the ball and our O couldn't move a man past second even if he led off with a double. That loss, to a team who did poorly last year but is currently one of the top teams in baseball, dropped the Mariners to one game below .500.

In yesterday's afternoon game, on a super-sunny, mid-50s mid-April day, the Reds and Mariners traded solo shots in the 2nd (Elly de la Cruz for them, Cal Raleigh for the good guys, a no-doubter), then there was nothing for several innings. Immediately after Cal, with two outs, Dylan Moore hit a triple thanks to a misplay by Reds centerfielder Stuart Fairchild, but he was stranded at third. With one out in the bottom of the 3rd,  Julio Rodriguez, off to an abysmal start (sub-.300 everything), ripped a double off the glove of Fairchild but was also stranded at third. Stranding at third seemed our lot. 

Then in the bottom of the 6th, we got another solo shot, this one from clean-up hitter Mitch Garver. Was that our lot? The solo shot? Because in the bottom of the 7th we got another one, from lead-off pinch-hitter Josh Rojas, making it 3-1. Four solo shots, four runs. That inning, though, finally gave way to another way to score. Newbie whippersnapper Jonatan Clase walked, stole second, and scored on a Mitch Haniger line single to left. Fun! Then Reds pitchers couldn't find the plate. Less fun! With two outs, Garver walked, and France walked to load them. Would Cal Raleigh get out the rye bread and mustard? No, he walked, too. Could Dylan Moore hit another triple to clear the bases? No, he struck out. But now we were up 5-1.  

It was my friend Jeff who pointed out that the Reds weren't exactly hitting. Meaning beyond de la Cruz's homer, they didn't have any other hits. 

“Did they even walk?” I wondered aloud. “I guess they're two over the minimum right now, so they must've walked.” They did: catcher Tyler Stephenson immediately after de la Cruz's homer. Those turned out to be the Reds' only baserunners for the day. Every other inning: three up, three down. Bryce Miller pitched six and got the win. Our first series win of the season was a series sweep, and it raised the Mariners record to .... right, one game below .500. This again. But I'll take the W.

Throughout the game, Jeff and I kept moving to stay in the sun. We began on the first-base side of the 300-level and wound up in shallow left field, but I still felt cold and stiff at the end. Maybe I'm getting too old for this shit? I screwed up the game time, too—thought it was a 12:40 start rather than 1:10—but was rewarded with a Griffey bobblehead doll. I normally say no to bobbleheads but I couldn't say no to that.