Seattle Mariners posts

Hardly the due up that spells doom, but the 7th inning of the 7th game proved unlucky for the Mariners.

A common refrain for me since 2019 has been: Not only were the Seattle Mariners the only team to not win a pennant, they were never within one game of winning the pennant. The best they'd ever done is win two games in the ALCS. They'd done it twice: 1995 and 2000. That was it.

Well, now we've gotten closer, but I don't know it makes me happier.

The M's finally won that elusive third ALCS game of the Friday night behind Eugenio Suarez's opposite-field grand slam in the 8th inning, to go up three games to two against the Blue Jays, with two to play in Toronto. We just needed to win one of those. 

Sunday, BJs took the early lead, padded it, we had bases-loaded chances that went nowhere, etc. 

Last night, we had a better chance. There was a fire there. Julio seemed fired up from the get-go and led off with a double and scored on Josh Naylor's single to right. They actually tried to get Julio at the plate. I thought that was funny. No way Julio not scoring on that. Next time up, Julio homered to left. Both hits were off BJs starter Shane Bieber, whose splitter wasn't splitting. Meanwhile, George Kirby was doing OK. Gave up a run in the first, allowed a two-out infield single in the second, 1-2-3 in the third, allowed a two-out single in the fourth.

I began this postseason admitting that I didn't know the 2025 Mariners well enough to question the moves of manager Dan Wilson. I feel that's no longer the case. Some of my question marks:

• I didn't get J.P.'s sac bunt with two on and nobody out in the 2nd. That's giving them an out with Leo Rivas and Victor Robles due up, and neither was hitting well. And yes, nobody budged. The ball wasn't even hit out of the infield: K, 1-3. Inning over.
• Didn't get pulling Kirby after 4. He seemed to be settling down. I guess it was the “third time through the lineup” argument, but, c'mon, by now everyone's seen everybody. They were all old pals. No one had any secrets. 
• I particularly didn't get that move if your only option between Bryan Woo and Andres Munoz was Eduard Bazardo. Because (I guess) you don't trust Gabe Speier and because you spent Matt Brash the day before. And why did you spend Matt Brash the day before in a losing effort?

All of that I don't get.

Admittedly, Dan made a bunch of moves that I also questioned that turned out OK. But these moves didn't.

In the bottom of the eighth, now down 4-3 of Whatshisface's three-run homer, I kept thinking, “Just get somebody on, just get somebody on, and if there are no DPs, we get both Julio and Cal in the ninth.” We didn't get anybody on. We also don't have much on the bench to pinch-hit. In the ninth, Rivas batted and struck out swinging. Dominic Canzone and his .100 postseason batting average hit for Victor Robles: K swinging. Then it was Julio, the face of the franchise, the man who had started the night so well, who had scored two of our three runs and driven in another, who had been fired up from the get-go. And on a 3-2 pitch he did what he often does: swings at the breaking ball low and away. And there went the at-bat, the game, the season. Julio didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve to be the one to end the season with Cal on-deck. But as the man said, deserve's got nothing to do with it.

We got close. Closer than this franchise has ever been. Maybe someday that fact will make me happier.

Today, for the second time in its nearly 50-year history, the Seattle Mariners will play a game to go to the World Series.

Right, because we lost last night, 6-2. It was another of those constipated games where we kept getting guys on base and couldn't bring them in. We didn't have a baserunner until the third inning (J.P.'s leadoff walk), and no hits until an out later (Leo Rivas's single), and then Julio walked as well, bringing up 60-homer man Cal Raleigh with the bases juiced and one out. 

Double play.

Next inning, now down 4-0, Josh Naylor singled to center, Randy Arozarena beat out an infield single, and Suarez walked, loading the bases for team leader J.P.

Double play. 

On social media, Sarah Langs promptly posted the following stat about multiple bases-loaded one-out double-plays in a postseason game:

“The good news?” I said to the crowd at Tim's. “All those teams lost.”* 

OK, so I knew both the '47 Dodgers and '02 Angels lost the World Series in seven, but I didn't remember how the '03 Giants did in that NLDS. I'm not that crazy. I just knew they didn't win the pennant. But yes, they lost that series, too, three games to one to the Marlins.

Blue Jays' scouting of opposing pitching feels excellent in the postseason. They've just clobbered No. 1/2 starters (against us and NYY) but suffer against someone like Bryce Miller, who, because of injuries this season, was an afterthought in the post. Makes you think starting a kid like Trey Yesavage, like the Blue Jays keep doing, isn't a bad way to go. Throw in the unknown quantity. Keith Hernandez once wrote most players would rather face an All-Star starter than a September call-up, because hitting is timing and that's upsetting timing.

None of that for Game 7. Tonight's game is a rematch of Game 3, George Kirby vs. Shane Bieber, which we lost 13-4 in Seattle. One assumes if either starter gets in trouble they won't last long. Let's hope our scouting can pick it up a notch. It takes a village to get to the World Series. 

* Actually we didn't have that going for us. Why I thought the Angels lost the 2002 World Series I don't know. But of course they won it in seven over the Giants. 

2-2 pitch, 2-2 game, too too great.

Today, for the first time in its nearly 50-year history, the Seattle Mariners will play a game that—if they win it—means going to the World Series.

Here’s a short history of the M’s and the postseason. It’s not pretty, so please accept all the usual trigger warnings:

• 1977: Inaugural season
• 1991: First .500 season
• 1995: First postseason: ALDS 3-2 over Yankees, ALCS 2-4 vs. Cleveland
• 1997: ALDS 1-3 vs. Baltimore
• 2000: ALDS 3-0 over ChiSox, ALCS 2-4 vs. Yankees
• 2001: ALDS 3-2 over Cleveland, ALCS 1-4 vs. Yankees
• 2002-2021: n/a
• 2022: WC 2-0 over Toronto, ALDS 0-3 vs. Houston
• 2023: ALDS 3-2 over Detroit, ALCS 3-2 vs. Toronto*

* active

So the closest we’d been to the World Series was up 2 games to 1 vs. Cleveland in ’95 after the Jay Buhner redemption game (error in 8th lets Cleveland tie it, HR in 11th wins it). That was October 13, 1995. And sure, we got within 2 games again, five years later, but that time we were down 3 games to 2. It felt like a lost cause. And it was.

Now, finally, we’re one win away.

I was at the park on Friday with Stephen M. for Game 5. It was my first time back since the previous Friday for the Game 5 against Detroit. “Game 5 Fridays” I call them.

After that 15-inning affair depleted our pitching staff, I, like everyone, didn’t expect the Mariners to do much in Game 1 in Toronto, but we won it, and the next one, and then the worst thing happened: I began to have hope. So of course at home the roof caved in. I never really got why Dan Wilson started George Kirby instead of Luis Castillo in Game 3, since George had thrown 60 pitches the previous Friday to Luis’ 15, but suddenly George didn’t have it, and neither did Luis the next day, and bullpen stalwarts like Gabe Speier couldn’t hold them, and so we were tied going into Friday.

But the tie wasn’t the thing that worried me most as I walked to the game: It was Blue Jays fans. I hadn’t been to a Mariners-Blue Jays game since 2016 because they’re just too infuriating. Hordes come down from Vancouver, B.C. to root for a team 2,500 miles from their home rather than one in their own backyard, nationalists all, jingoists all, generally polite but still annoying as fuck. “A home invasion by the Glee Club” I called it back then. King Felix shut them down, sure, reminding them “This is my house!” but many Mariners fans seemed cool to let them have the run of the place.

Well, no more. For Game 5, yes, the BJs were there, but M’s fans were way more numerous and way more vocal. Yes, a group of BJs acted like jerks in our section, starting chants to just be annoying, staring down anyone (like me) who turned around to see the fuss; but I was in a good head space and ignored them the rest of the way. Yes, in the top of the 4th, the Blue Jays loaded the bases with nobody out (double, IBB, BB), and a BJ in the row behind me, who was there with his family, loudly and mockingly stated, “I’m new to this baseball thing, what does it mean when there are runners on every base? I’m confused, I don’t know what that means!” But then Bryce Miller got Daulton Varsho swinging and induced a one-foot double play (2-3) to end the threat, and I was able to respond to him, “I’m new to this baseball thing, what does it mean when a team has runners on every base and doesn’t SCORE? I’m confused, I don’t know what that means!”

Plus at that point we were ahead on a Eugenio Suarez home run in the second.

And then we weren’t. They tied it in the fifth, went ahead in the sixth (Alejandro Kirk somehow scored from second on a single), and suddenly it was the eighth, Big Dumper leading off.

And what does he do? Goes very high and just deep enough to tie the game again. And then BB, BB, pitching change, HBP, which brought up Eugenio again. At that point, there had only been one grand slam in Mariners postseason history, Edgar’s in Game 4 of the ’95 ALDS. Well, now I’ve been to both of them. Edgar had homered earlier in Game 4, too, like Eugenio here, and like Edgar’s my immediate thought off the bat was: Sac fly anyway! But could it...? Could it ...? IT COULD!

And here we are, one win away. I’ll be watching the game at Tim’s, with Jeff and the B’s, fingers and toes crossed.

My oh my, Dave.

Tie game. Cal knew it, the fans knew it, the ump knew it, Gausman certainly knew it.

I came into Game 1 of the 2025 ALCS with low expectations. The Blue Jays had deciminated the Yankees in four games last week, finishing them off Wednesday, while the Mariners eked past the lesser Detroit Tigers, finally winning Game 5 in a 15-inning sisyphean struggle on Friday night, after which the M's had to fly to Toronto to get ready for Sunday's game. Plus, because we'd gone through virtually every other pitcher on the way to victory Friday night, we were throwing out our No. 5 starter, Bryce Miller, on three days rest—and he'd never pitched on three days rest before—while the Blue Jays were throwing their No. 1 starter Kevin Gausman. 

The first inning was worse than I expected. Both Cal and Julio singled, but Cal was thrown out at the plate on a grounder to third (and on replay didn't he look safe?), so there went that. And the first pitch that Bryce threw to George Springer? There went that. 1-0, Jays. And the second batter Bryce faced? A 12-pitch walk. Still nobody out. 

“This is going to be a long fucking night,” I said to the crowd at Tim's.

Sometime around the third inning, I mentioned in passing, “I can't believe it's just 1-0. It feels like we're losing bigger than that.”

It stayed 1-0 through six. And wasn't that the inning we finally got to Gausman in that second, crazy wild card game back in 2022? It was! Down 8-1, we came back to win it 10-9.

This was the less extreme version of that. In the sixth, with two outs and two strikes on 60-homer man Cal Raleigh, one of Gausman's pitches drifted over enough for Cal to golf it into the right-field bleachers, a no-doubter, 400+ feet. Tie game. And we weren't even done for the inning. Julio drew a five-pitch walk, Gausman was pulled, the relief pitcher threw a wild one allowing Julio to get to second, and Jorge Polanco, the 15th-inning hero on Friday, rocketed a single to left to put the Mariners in front. Again, all with two outs. Two innings later, Randy Arozarena walked, stole second and third, and came home on Jorge's slow-roller to right.

3-1, Mariners.

After that 27-pitch first, Bryce was amazing, and threw only 76 overall. He gave up just two hits: Springer's leadoff homer and a single in the second that Victor Robles, with his batter card in his teeth, misplayed into a two-bagger.  After Bryce, the Mariners triumverate of Gabe Speier, Matt Brash and Andres Munoz shut them down, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, and Game 1 was ours. No one saw it coming, least of all me. Goddamn, this team is giving me hope. 

Beyond the lovely joy of it, and the relative ease of it compared to the sturm und drang of the Tigers series, I liked imagining the Yankees fan dealing with the result. Last week, the Blue Jays greeted $200 million Yankee pitchers like it was batting practice, and this week we roll out our No. 5 pitcher on three-days rest who smothers down. The unfairness of the world is finally visited upon the most entitled fans in sports. Welcome to the party, pals.

I'm heading over to Tim's shortly to watch Game 1 of the ALCS between the Mariner and Blue Jays, and earlier, when I was returning from weekly Trader Joe's shopping, I thought, “Hey, I should bring over Mariners cupcakes or something.” I remember doing something like that with the Seahawks for a Super Bowl party back in the day. Decided to just walk over to Cupcake Royale on Pike and get something. But Cupcake Royale was no longer on Pike. Bummer! Wait, no, it was—just on the other side of Pike. Wah-lah! Except, no. They had beautiful-looking cupcakes but nothing Mariners.

So I tried Bakery Nouvea on 15th. Ditto. No Mariners anything. Could Capitol Hill be more Capitol Hill? I figured, well, Sugar Bakery, where I got those Cal Raleigh cookies before Game 1 of the ALDS, will suffice. Hell, I should've started there. What was I thinking?

Except: nothing. Bupkis. Again.

The 2025 MLB season is down to just four of the 30 teams. Here they are ranked by pennants and/or World Series titles:

If you like underdogs, you know who to root for.

Oh, and Capitol Hill/First Hill bakeries, let's step it up a notch. This kind of thing only comes around every quarter-century you know.

The signing I dismissed in March gave us the clear clean single that won the night and the series.

In the middle of the 14th inning at Mariners Park last night, we redid the 7th inning stretch. We all stood—most of us were standing anyway—and sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” again, while fans danced, and mugged for the cameras, and kept making noise. This is what you do when games go on forever. You reprise things.

Which is why, in the middle of the 15th inning, they gave us a reprise of the Salmon Run. It’s the Mariners late-entry into the whole “Racing Sausages” thing, begun in Milwaukee, I guess, during the 2000 season, and continued in D.C. with presidents like Lincoln and Washington racing each other, and in other stadiums to various degrees of product placement and plagiarism: Marlins do roosters, Braves “Home Depot” tools, Cleveland Sugardale Hot Dogs. It’s generally human beings wearing goofy vertical costumes, running along the warning track and foul ground to see who can win a foot race. Or a fin race.

The Salmon Run, at least, makes sense for Seattle, and they’ve created characters of a kind to cheer on: King (the dominant elder), Sockeye (the grunge kid), and Silver (the tech nerd). Then there’s Humpy, the sad, slow little fish who wears a life preserver and who—like Martin Short’s male synchronized swimmer—might not be “the strongest swimmer.” Or runner. He’s the only one of the four who’s never won a race, just like the Seattle Mariners are the only one of the 30 MLB franchises who have never won a pennant. That’s why, as the M’s made their great run in September, I expected the Powers-that-Be would let Humpy finally win one. But no. I went to Game 1 of the ALDS last Saturday and he was still 0-fer. And in the sixth inning or eighth inning or whenever they did the Salmon Run the first time, they didn’t let him win, either. He didn’t come close. 

Poor Humpy.

But in the middle of the 15th inning, Humpy finally broke the tape and won the Salmon Run.

And in the bottom of the 15th inning, the Mariners finally broke through with a 3-2 victory that sent them to the ALCS.

Baseball fans, certainly Tigers fans, might say the Mariners won because manager A.J. Hinch pulled starter Tarik Skubal after six innings and 99 pitches, and rookie Troy Melton after only one inning and 17 pitches, and in the 15th, running out of options, went with Tommy Kahnle, who’d had a so-so season (4.43 ERA, 1.30 WHIP), and a shaky postseason (3.86 ERA, 3.00 WHIP), and last night seemed immediately hittable. At least No. 9 hitter J.P. Crawford laced a single—our first hit since Victor Robles leadoff double in the bottom of the 10th. Yeah, in the interim, we kept getting baserunners, six in all, but via walks or HBP. We had men in scoring position time and again, often with nobody out, but nobody could bring anyone in.

“My kingdom for a clean hit!” I said to Tim at some point amid the madness. 

That’s what Crawford’s was: a clean, f’ing hit. And then Randy Arozarena was hit by a pitch and we had the big boys coming up. Cal lined one to deep center that moved Crawford to third and (when the throw went awry) Arozarena to second. And as soon as that happened you’re like, “Well, they’ll intentionally walk Julio.” Which they did, bringing up Jorge Polanco with the bases juiced and one out. It went to 2-1 before he fouled one off, and the confidence I was feeling waned slightly. If he K’ed, Eugenio Suarez would be up, and he’d looked lost for the series, going 2-21 with 9 Ks and 1 BB. But the next pitch was a ball. 3-2.

“Would you take a bases-loaded walk to get to the LCS?” I asked Tim.

“I’d take it, but…” he said, and then scrunched his face.

A second later, Polanco, whose signing I dismissed in March, made the question moot, giving us that clean, clear single that right fielder (and Game 5 unstoppable force) Kerry Carpenter didn’t even bother to field, letting it bounce all the way to the wall, as J.P. Crawford ran down, paused as if genuflecting before home plate, and then jumped on it with all his might for the victory.

So, you could argue, we finally won this game, the longest winner-take-all postseason game in baseball history, because Hinch went with Kahnle, Kahnle wasn’t sharp, and we got some sharp singles. That’s what the baseball world will tell you.

But fans at the park immediately knew better. WE WON IT BECAUSE OF HUMPY! HUMPY FINALLY WON SO WE FINALLY WON!!!!

Hell, it even made The Seattle Times:

 I’m with them.

* * *

It was almost eight hours from the time I left home to when I returned to it, hoarse and happy, but I was oddly happy throughout the game. I wasn’t my usual curmudgeonly self. Maybe I’d just made the decision that it was all gravy anyway, and that if we couldn’t beat the Tigers behind Tarik Skubal for the fourth time this season in four tries, well, it was just the law of averages. It helped that in Section 327 we were surrounded by good fans, strangers we high-fived throughout, and that the Mariners sound system wasn’t on 11 like it was for Game 1, and that, early on, we kinda-sorta got to Skubal. In the first, Cal Raleigh kept lacing majestic foul balls that nearly skimmed the underside of the roof (we were a closed-roof game), before he singled to left. And in the second, Josh Naylor, a leftie(!), poked a double into the left-field corner, stole third when no one was looking, and came home on a good sac fly to center by Mitch Garver. 1-0 M’s.

See? It’s not so hard to score against Skubal!

That turned out to be our last baserunner against him. After the sac, he struck out the next seven guys, all swinging, until Naylor (again!), lined one to center for the first out in the fifth. Then: K, fly out, K, pop out, K. That last K was bottom 6, against 60-homer man Cal Raleigh, and Skubal exulted coming off the mound.

“I think he’s done,” I said to Tim.

“He is at 99 pitches,” Tim said peering at his scorecard. “I’d leave him in if I were Hinch, but happy to have him out for me.”

“Yeah,” a guy behind us said, motioning. “Everyone is congratulating him in the dugout. He’s done.”

By this point we were down 2-1. Kerry Carpenter, whom Baseball Reference says is a 28-year-old, 19th-round draft pick out of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and who has never hit .300, or launched 30 homers or driven in 100 (or even 75) in his four journeyman seasons in the Majors, last night seemed the Devil incarnate to Mariners fans—an unstoppable force, ultimately going 4-5 with two walks. And in the top of the sixth, he hit a 2-run homer off of the suddenly very hittable Gabe Speier to put the Tigers on top.

But Skubal was out! Kyle Finnegan, a trade deadline acquisition from the Nats, was in. He’d done great for Detroit—18 innings, 3-0, 1.50 ERA, 0.722 WHIP—and great against Cleveland in the postseason, but so-so against us. He wasn’t bad here. Julio flied out, Polanco walked, Suarez lined out, Nayor (again!) singled. That’s when Hinch and Mariners manager Dan Wilson decided to play dueling magicians: What card you got? This card? Or is it THIS card? With the lefty Skubal replaced by the righty Finnegan, Dan sent the lefty Dominic Canzone to bat for righty Mitch Garver. Hinch, taking no chances, called for lefty Tyler Holton, at which point Dan burned his Canzone card (a rare .300 hitter in baseball today) for switch hitter Leo Rivas, a 28-year-old with not even 200 plate appearances in the Majors. By the way: Rivas is 28 on the dot. Yesterday, Oct. 10, Double-10 Day to the Chinese, was his birthday. And after taking a strike, he gave himself and all of Seattle a present by lacing a single to left to tie the game.

We barely had time to celebrate, or take in the runners in scoring position, before Victor Robles grounded to short. But now we had life. Skubal was out, the game was tied, we could do this.

We could. It just took forever.

It’s odd participating in a live event that others are experiencing via a medium like television. I began to get texts from friends. “You at the game? It’s an instant classic.” Really? This? It’s so frustrating! It’s the blue-balls of postseason games. Nobody can score!

• Bottom 10, Victor Robles with a leadoff double. We didn’t even move him over.
• Top 11, Carpenter with a leadoff single and went to second on a passed ball. Nobody out. But he was stranded.
• Top 12: two leadoff singles, a sac bunt, and then a grounder to third but a perfect throw home by Suarez to nail the runner. That was exciting.
• Bottom 12: walk, HBP, fly out, GDP.
• Bottom 13: walk, walk, K, GDP.
• Top 14: one-out double by catcher Dillon Dingler, K, popout.
• Bottom 14: two-out walk to Robles, caught stealing.

I thought we were boring the world, but friends, sportswriters, headlines, were all calling it a nail-biter, a thriller, an instant classic. Sarah Langs, the young stats historian guru, posted this:

And I was at both, I responded.

Later, she posted this:

Ditto.

* * *

It’s sacrilege to say, still basking in the glow, but in the 12th or 13th inning I thought “Neither of these teams can beat Toronto.” That’s probably wrong. You get hot at the right time, as Toronto did against New York this week, or as the Mariners did for the month of September, anything can happen. We just need that again.

As the extras continued, I also thought the obvious: “Blue Jays fans are certain happy anyway.” Pitching staffs were being depleted left and right. Tigers threw eight pitchers out there, we threw seven, including starters Logan Gilbert (10th and 11th), and Luis Castillo (14th and 15th). So who’s left? Bryce Miller, who was injured this year, and not the same afterwards. And maybe hopefully Bryan Woo, our ace, who has been lost to us since mid-September. If we get him back, and he’s good, anything can happen.

So for the first time since 2016, the ALCS is both Astro- and Yankee-free, and this time it’s a match-up between the two 1977 expansion teams. How about that? The Toronto Blue Jays have two pennants, two World Series championships, but haven’t been back since ’93. The Seattle Mariners? The only franchise to never go. We’ve never even made a Game 7 of the ALCS. But as Humpy showed us last night, anything can happen. “Might as well win the whole fucking thing,” Cal Raleigh said after the Mariners won the AL West title in September. He said it again last night as the fans stucked around and cheered some more.

Keep saying it, Cal.

So many WWE-style pyrotechnics you half expect Stone Cold Steve Austin to come sauntering down the ramp and grab a bat.

You know when you try to get a dog to see something, and push their face toward the thing you want them to see, but instead of going with the push they keep pushing back to see what the heck someone is doing to their face? Increasingly, at Mariners games, I feel like that dog.

The pusher is whatever individual or group or AI is now in charge of the sound system and scoreboard and between-innings/pitches shenanigans. These were always bad—so much so that I complained about them in print in 1997—but in the past few months everything has been turned to 11. It’s loud and relentless, and for our first postseason game vs. the Tigers last night it never took a fucking breath:

• Stand up!
• Make noise!
• Flashlights on!
• Foul Ball Dance Party!
• Do the hokey-pokey and turn yourselves around!

You don’t have time to see a player’s batting average or ERA before the scoreboard—all the scoreboards—are pulsating with Mariners messaging. The game itself is being lost behind this noise. There’s no signal in it. It’s so much like WWE pyrotechnics, I half expected Stone Cold Steve Austin or Triple H to come sauntering down the ramp and grab a bat.

And for all the noise we made, which the scoreboard kept reminding us that we in the Pacific NW were really good at making, the Seattle Mariners lost to the Detroit Tigers 3-2 in 11 innings.

In those 11 innings, we got six hits: 3 by Cal Raleigh, 3 by Julio Rodriguez. Julio got both RBIs behind a solo homerun and a run-scoring single. All of it felt familiar. Not in the September-to-Remember way, when the M’s couldn’t lose, but in the usual Pac NW way, when we can lose in stultifying fashion. 

In yesterday’s post, I admitted that I no longer know enough about the Ms to know which managerial decisions are immediately awful, but my friend Tim doesn’t suffer such a deficit. For either team, it turns out. Mid-game, the out-of-town scoreboard took a momentary break from telling us to STAND UP and MAKE NOISE to let us know that Rafael Montero was now warming up in the Detroit bullpen.

“Oh good, yes, put him in,” Tim said.

Montero had played for the M’s for half a season—we got him from Texas in December 2020 and traded him to Houston midseason as part of the Kendall Graveman deal—but Tim has a long memory, maybe particularly for bad bullpen guys, and Montero was that. And apparently he’s remained that. He’s pitched since 2014 and has a -0.6 career bWAR. Somehow he keeps finding teams. Teams keep thinking they can fix whatever problem he has. This season he played for three different teams. He was with Houston for a hot week in March/April before traded to Atlanta, where he threw 34 innings with a 5.50 ERA before being traded July 31 to Detroit, where, hey, he pitched 22 innings with a 2.86 ERA. Not bad! Right, but also a not-good 19-14 K-BB ratio. 

In last night’s game, he came in in the bottom of the 6th with the M’s down 2-1. Julio had led off the 4th with that solo homer to center, Josh Naylor nearly followed it with one to right but got just under it and it died on the warning track. Then with two outs and a man on in the top of the 5th, on a 1-2 pitch from “Summer of George” Kirby, who was shaky at the outset, Kerry Carpenter rocketed a no-doubter to right for the bad guys.

But then came Montero. And Tim was exactly right: walk, single, single. Tie game. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch knew he’d seen enough and signaled for Tyler Holton, who got Naylor to chop a double-play ball up the middle: tag out, Naylor by half a step. Ah, but Mariners manager Dan Wilson called for a review! I guess maybe Julio hadn’t been tagged by Javy Baez? Was that the argument? Whatever the argument was, it lost, and the inning ended with a Jorge Polanco line-out to right.

And that’s where it stayed, 2-2, with hardly a baserunner for either team, until the bottom of the 10th when the out-of-town scoreboard flashed that Carlos Vargas was now warming up in the Mariners bullpen.

“Hurry up and score!“ Tim shouted. ”Vargas is about to come in!”

“Not good?” I asked.

Tim shrugged. “He puts on two guys every inning.”

And when Vargas took the mound in the top of the 11th, Tim shouted his usual: “Prove me wrong!”

Vargas didn’t. He proved him exactly right, giving up a leadoff walk, allowing the guy to advance on a wild pitch, and then, with two outs, Tigers third baseman Zach McKinstry hit a slow roller up the middle that comically evaded everyone’s outstretched gloves.  In “Homage to Catalonia,” about the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell wrote some great lines about a heavy, decrepit gun he encountered:

Its great shells whistled over so slowly that you felt certain you could run beside them and keep up with them. A shell from this gun sounded like nothing so much as a man riding along on a bicycle and whistling.

That was McKinstry’s game-winning hit last night, evading everybody. 

In the bottom of the 11th, facing a better Montero, Keider, Randy Arozarena grounded out to third (McKinstry!), Cal Raleigh fouled out to third (McKinstry!), Julio gave us a momentary reprise with a sharp single, but then Josh Naylor, on a 1-2 pitch, grounded out to first. And that was the ballgame.

And today we face Tarik “Skubal was a racehorse, and I wish he were mine.” Tough row. We’ll see. Crazier things have happened.

I’m almost grateful I don’t have tickets for this one. I can watch it in a bar, where, sure, I’ll stand up and make noise, but I’ll do it when I want to. And as loud as the bar may be, I’ll actually be able to have a conversation with friends between pitches. That'll be a nice change.

Read Tim's account here.

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.

On my remaining social media account the other day, people were talking up their rooting interests in the baseball postseason, which begins today—in less than an hour, actually—and they were calculating their gradations of interest, which I think went from “Strongly rooting for” to “Hell no,” or some such, and one guy, under “Hell no,” put the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Seattle Mariners.

Dodgers I get. Thirteen postseasons in a row. World Series title last year. A gazillion-dollar payroll. But … the Seattle Mariners? WTF?

And then I went to his bio and realized he was a fan of the Houston Astros.

Even so: How small do you have to be to revile a team that has won nothing—that is in fact the only MLB franchise to never even win a pennant—just because, after a decade of dominance by your team, they happen to knock your team off its perch this one time.

It’s in the American tradition to root for underdogs and the Seattle Mariners are certainly that. Here are the 12 remaining teams ranked by 1) World Series titles, 2) pennants, and finally 3) postseason appearances:

And if the whole history of baseball is too much to contemplate, if you’re like, “Yeah, Poindexter, but what about lately, huh?,” here are the same parameters but in this century:

End of story. Tridents up! GO MARINERS!

See you ... in October

I'm reminded of '95. That team was actually so-so until the “Refuse to Lose” September to remember changed everything. Ditto here. For five months we floundered. Win one, lose one. Two and a half steps forward, two steps back. Cal Raleigh was having a season for the ages, but... Julio was doing his usual “Wake me in August and I'll make it worth your while” routine, but... Always the but. The Mariners have always been the big “but...” team. No wonder we have The Big Dumper.

We had half a lineup: Cal, Julio, J.P., Arozarena. Everything else was spare parts. Our Opening Day lineup included Luke Raley, Rowdy Tellez and Ryan Bliss. The first game after the All-Star break, we trotted out Donovan Solano, Ben Williamson and Cole Young. Even after we stocked up with Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor at the trade deadline and suddenly looked like a lineup, something formidable, it didn't quite gel. July 31, we were six games over .500. More than a month later, on September 6 we were five games over .500.

Leaving the game on August 27th, a 4-3 victory over San Diego, I heard someone call my name and it turned out to be someone I hadn't seen in 20+ years. We talked and exchanged info and took a selfie/groupie, and a week and a half later, Sept. 6, I finally got around to sending him the photo along with this message: “Was this the last time we won?” He laughed, mentioned one victory in that period, but overall it seemed same old same old. This is what the standings looked like that day:

For the last two seasons, 2023 and '24, the Mariners had the best record of any American League team that didn't make the playoffs, and we seemed headed in that direction again. The question at the time was: Can we stave off the Rangers? 

And then WHOOOOSH.

17-1. Ten-game win streak, loss to KC, seven-game win streak. And here we are now.

Even during the run, I kept expecting the other shoe to drop. Sure, we swept St. Louis, but they lost two of three to Colorado, so... And now it's the Angels, and we always seem to do shitty against the Angels, so...

Friday, Sept. 19, we were in a tie with Houston for the AL West lead and beginning a three-game series with Houston in Houston. And Houston was the bete noire, the longtime bad boy of the division, the perennial. They didn't even show up until 2013, but since the Mariners last won the AL West in 2001 the Astros have finished atop division more than any other team:

AL West titles, 2002-2024:

• Astros: 7
• A's: 6
• Angels: 6
• Rangers: 4
• Mariners: 0

We had a good wildcard run in 2022 but then the Astros knocked us out with the help of some shitty bullpen calls (Robbie Ray). They always knocked us out. Not this time. Not only did we sweep, they never led. Not once—in any game. And once we led, which was sooner rather than later (1st inning, 1st inning, 2nd inning), we didn't give up the lead: 4-0, 6-4, 7-3. A week ago, the Astros sat atop the AL West. Now they're 5 games back, and will need a good weekend, and a bad one from Detroit or Boston, to even make the postseason. They're slipping away. Because we knocked THEM out.

Feels good. We've been given the most dangerous thing in the world: hope.

More soon.

Bryan Woo's Eastwood face: “You gotta ask yourself a question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?”

Last night was Fan Appreciation Night, the first game I chose as part of our season-ticket lottery back in March, and I went with a fan I appreciate: Tim. That said, Tim, being a night person, doesn't appreciate 6:40 starts. Me, I think they're great. I love both them and quicker games. I arrive home in time to do The New York Times Sunday crossword with my wife.

What neither Tim nor I appreciate? The noise level at the park. The speakers in Section 327 last night didn't seem too attrocious but the gimcrackery was relentless*. There was no time to talk. Plus what they pummel us with seems dumber all the time. Walking to my seats, seeing a bunch of people piled into a photo booth, I thought of carnival. This is a carnival. That's what baseball games are now. I think the corporate thinking is: “We don't want you to think for two seconds because your thought might be: This is boring. So here's another time-waster. Here's another ...” I don't evem know if there's a word for how loud, relentless and stupid these virtual or audio baubles are, so I guess I'll have to make one up. “Here's another glunk. Enjoy!”

* Yes, using “gimcrackery” allows anyone to dismiss anything I say as the complaints of a cranky, shakes-fist-at-cloud old man; I'm sticking with it since that is in fact me. Might as well own up.

I should be basking in last night's victory, our eighth in a row, putting us in a tie with the Houston Astros for the lead in the American League West. We scored two in the bottom of the 1st (HBP, double, double) and never gave up the lead. Our starter, Bryan Woo, struck out a career-high 13 in only six innings, which, yes, if you do the math, 13 of the 18 outs he got were strikeouts. Five of his six innings were 1-2-3 innings, including the sixth, where, Bugs Bunny-like, it was three up, three down, three Ks. Helluva game. Tim, who follows the M's more closely than I do, thinks Woo should be our Game 1 starter if we make the postseason. Woo certainly showed why last night.

And yet there was that second inning. He got the Angels 1-2-3 in the first, but the first pitch of the second went about 15 rows into the left-centerfield bleachers. The batter was clean-up hitter Jo Adell, whom I'd never heard of, but who now has 36 homers on the season. I guess he was the guy to be careful with and Woo wasn't.

Here's the chief reason I didn't bask in our victory. Half the Angels lineup was kids or never-beens:

• 5) Christian Moore, 2B, 22, 113 career AB, .190, -0.3 WAR
• 6) Logan Davidson, 1B, 27, 35 career AB, .179, -0.4 WAR
• 7) Denzer Guzman, SS, 21, 0 career AB, .000, 0.0 WAR
• 8) Sebastian Rivero, C, 26, 80 career AB, .232, 0.0 WAR
• 9) Bryce Teodosio, CF, 26, 116 career AB, .220, 0.8 WAR

Notice Guzman there? The scoreboard said he'd played one game and had zero at-bats. Tim wondered if he'd come in as a defensive replacement or a pinch-runner or something, while I wondered if the one game meant this game. Turns out, yes, the one game meant this game. Last night was Denzer Guzman's Major League debut. I guess Tim and I missed it when they announced it over the PA system. Kidding. They didn't announce it. Why would they? That's baseball stuff. Whaddaya care about baseball stuff for, nerd? This is carnivale! Here's a glunk! Woooooo!

Despite those bottom-of-the-barrel numbers, Woo struggled in the second inning. After Adell's HR, he walked Moore, got Ks from Davidson and Guzman (welcome to the Show, kid), but then gave up singles to Rivero and Teodosio that tied the game, and that brought up their leadoff hitter, one-time greatest player who ever lived Mike Trout, with a chance to put the game away by doing the thing Trout always does at Mariners Park: destroy us. But this is older, weaker Trout and he K'ed to end the inning. They didn't get another hit until Trout singled with two outs in the 8th. By then it was 5-2. The Angels made it 5-3 when their No. 3 hitter Turner Ward (only the second name on the Angels I recognized) hit his 31st homer of the season and 108th of his career. All of his dingers, btw, have been with the Angels. Other than Trout, he's the grand old man on the team. Among only-Angels it goes Trout (debut: 2011), Ward (2018), Luis Rengifo (2019), Adell (2020). Among them, just Trout has seen a winning season; they haven't had once since 2015.

Trout, turns out, is sitting on 399 homers. If he'd hit his 400th would the Mariners' PA or scoreboard have mentioned it? I think they would have but ... maybe not? And I think that's the main reason I didn't bask last night. I'm a baseball guy, and when I go to baseball games I don't see my people anymore. That's a little sad. I don't think the people running the show keep me in mind. They're too busy trying to appeal to those who find baseball boring.

So it was an easy win but you have to win the easy ones. Lord knows we've had trouble with the Angels in the past when we shouldn't have. And I do like our lineup. Top to bottom, I think it's our best since 2003.

Two weeks to go.

Julio zeroing in on No. 20.

Well, that was fun for a change.

Yesterday, I went to the Mariners' final game of a four-game series with division/wild card rival Texas, and thus far we'd gone 2-1, winning our second in dramatic fashion with a J.P. Crawford walkoff homer Friday night, but then losing Saturday. If we could take this one, we'd get a nice 3-1 series win. Lose, we'd split. Blah. And we were going against one of the best pitchers in the game (when healthy), Jacob deGrom, while trotting out a guy I didn't know: rookie Logan Evans, 24, a 12th-round pick from the U of Pittsburgh two years ago, who was 4-4 with a 4.22 ERA and a 2-1 strikeout-walk ratio. Odds (Vegas odds), were against us.

Except ... was deGrom healthy? He'd given up just 5 runs in 5 starts in June, but matched that in his last start on July 28. Against the Angels. 

The stunning thing for me, sitting in Section 327 as I waited through pregame yadda yaddas on an overcast day, was checking out the batting averages of the Rangers' starting lineup. I'd heard the team was the opposite of what everyone anticipated from them—their weak pitching was great and their great hitting was weak—but it was wild seeing in person: nary a .300 hitter, many below .250, one-time potential superstar Adolis Garcia hitting near Mendoza, and one-time pearl-necklace-wearing icon Joc Pederson way, way below that. It looked like some recent Mariners lineups, to be honest.

In this game, they hit well, or well-ish, but deGrom kept giving up the lead. It was a lot of back-and-forth. Everyone kept answering: 

• Bottom 2: Jorge Polanco rifles a solo shot to right field, 15 rows deep: M's 1-0.
• Top 3: Corey Seager homers to center with a man on: Rangers 2-1.
• Bottom 3: Julio muscles an opposite field homer to right-center with Cal Raleigh on: M's 3-2.
• Top 4: short-lived Mariner Rowdy Tellez doubles to center with two outs and Alolis Garcia on: 3-3.
• Bottom 4: J.P. Crawford rifles a two-out homer to right-center with Canzone on: M's 5-3.

In the 6th, the Rangers got a solo shot from Garcia—he would go 3-3, the proverbial triple shy of the cycle—to make it 5-4; but the visitors went 1-2-3 in the 7th and 8th, and we had our big bad closer, All-Star Andres Munoz coming in for the 9th. Which ... yeah. He looked a little wild. His slider wasn't landing and he walked Garcia. Not a bad move in this game, TBH. A double-play ball from Joc was fumbled by J.P. Crawford (is he having issues in the field or just when I'm there?), but we got a force at second in time. Or did we? Rangers challenged, because why not, but no, he was out. Then long-lost little brother Sam Haggerty, he of the “Godfather” walkup music, pinch-ran for Joc at first and swiped second. Or did he? This time we challenged and it was overturned: Sam's foot got on the bag in time but slid past it. The next pitch was strike 3 on Wyatt Langford, and the game and the series was ours. No fuss, no muss.

More, with Eugenio Suarez back in the fold after the July 31 deadline, our guys did the infield circle dance like it was 2022 all over again. That felt good. The whole game felt good. I wouldn't mind some runs being scored on something besides homers, but I'll take the homers.

Speaking of: Julio's 2-run shot in the 3rd was his 20th for the season, meaning he's gone 20-20 again, meaning he's the first player in MLB history to go 20-20 in his first four seasons. He also made a nice running catch in center. 

Again, it was all just ... nice. We got 1B Josh Naylor from the D-Backs on July 24, and he made a nice play on a foul out in shallow right, looking like a professional. Our lineup suddenly looks almost formidable. I mean, sure, a .300 hitter in the mix, or more .280 hitters, would help, but it beats the dispiriting lineups we've had. It left me with an odd feeling leaving the park. It took me a while to figure out what it was.

Buoyant.

Remember in the 2010s when Blue Jays fans would descend upon Mariners Park with their chants of “Jose Jose Jose” for their beloved Bautista? Yesterday, Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford countered with “Olé olé olé” as grounder after grounder zipped under his glove in one of the worst defensive performance I've seen from a shortstop. This is just two weeks after he passed one-time future Hall of Famer Alex Rodriguez for most games by a Mariners shortstop ever. That day, manager Dan Wilson said: “J.P. has been so solid defensively. ... He has been so steady for us at a position that is a demanding one for sure.”

Not yesterday. Crawford was charged with only one error in the game—Isaac Collins' grounder to short that started the bleeding in the 4th—but I could've seen him getting dinged for one or two more. Plus he should've gotten an extra error for all of it. He just looked lost out there. Was he sick? Sun blind? He also went 0-3 at the plate.

Gotta give it to the Brewers, though. There was a Brewers fan sitting behind me, visiting from Wisconsin, and early on I asked him how the Brewers were doing it. They have one of the best records in baseball and no one in the lineup is doing much of anything. It's sub-.300 BAs and sub-.800 OPSes. It's another guy with 6 homeruns. He didn't know, either, it's just what they do: dominate unexpectedly in the regular season, and, with expectations on them, lose in the first round of the playoffs. I asked if anyone in Wisconsin tallked about “The Curse of Seattle.” No, he said, what's that? Well, I said, the Brewers were originally a Seattle team, the Pilots, for one sad season in 1969 until Bud Selig bought them and moved them to midwest; and they'd barely won anything—a pennant in 1982. Meanwhile, the Mariners didn't even have that. A century of baseball between them, and these two clubs, both born in Seattle, have one pennant and no titles. Seattle teams don't win. It's the curse of Seattle. Do people talk about this here? he asked. Just me, I admitted.

The final score yesterday was 10-2, but the truly impressive thing was the Brewers had 17 hits and zero home runs. I can't remember the last time I saw a team score 10 runs without a homer. It was kind of refreshing. Annoying during, refreshing in the whole. Another slow grounder up the middle that sneaked through. Another two-out double in the gap. By all these no-name guys with .682 OPSes. Their best hitter, Christian Yelich, went 1-5. He had the first hit of the game that led to nothing. It was all the other guys.

But apparently this is how the Brewers are doing it. They are 25th in homeruns, 27th in doubles, but 15th in hits, 10th in walks, 3rd in stolen bases, and 7th in runs scored. A lot of singles, a lot of extra bases. Death by a thousand cuts. My friend Tim should be rooting for them. 

The Mariners org made the game even less fun by turning up the loudspeaker to 11 in Section 327. I could barely talk to my friend Jeff. We got to witness several new between-inning shenanigans so insipdid they made the others seem like they were written by Shakespeare. We also did the Salmon Run in front of the team that did it first, and way better, with the Brat Run. We also sat MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh for entire game.

Well, it was a beautiful day, as Marge says.

The other day my friend Mike and I were texting each other about what might make a good Seattle Mariners bobblehead giveaway—this in the wake of the upcoming George Costanza offering at Yankee Stadium—and after several misfires (Frank Costanza complaining about the Buhner trade, Lenny Randle blowing a ball foul), we agreed on one concept, what Mike called “the Double Diego”: Diego Segui pitching on Opening Day for the Seattle Pilots in 1969 and the Seattle Mariners in 1977. I'd suggested this idea not knowing that Segui had passed away at the end of last month, while I was still in France.

As Mariners fans know, Segui is the only player to play for both Seattle MLB teams, but he had his best years with the A's—both in Kansas City, where, as a rookie in 1962, he went 8-5 with a 3.86 ERA, and in Oakland, where in, 1970, he led the Majors in ERA with a 2.56 mark. But he was itinerant. He was born in Cuba, was signed and then quickly dropped by Cincinnati in 1958, made his way to the Arizona-Mexico League for a season, then was picked by and made his way through the Athletics' system. After a few seasons in the big, he was purchased by the Washington Senators (II) in April 1966 and then traded back to the Athletics that July. He was then taken by the nascent Seattle Pilots with the 14th pick of the expansion draft in October 1968.

Though primarily a reliever in 1969, he was the Pilots' best pitcher by bWAR (2.4), going 12-6 with a 3.35 ERA and 12 saves. What did this mean to an org that was so poorly run it traded the eventual 1969 Rookie of the Year (Lou Piniella) before the season even began? Right, trade bait. They sent him back to the Athletics for not much, and he promptly led the league in ERA. He kept pitching not poorly for the A's but in the summer of '72, just as they were beginning their great run, they sent him to St. Louis for a season and a half. Then he was part of a six-player deal to Boston. His '75 season wasn't great (2-5, 4.82 ERA), but he was on the postseason roster and pitched a mop-up inning of the 1975 World Series. In Game 5, with the Reds leading 5-1, Boston's Dick Pole walked Johnny Bench and Tony Perez to start out the bottom of the eighth, so Segui was called on and got three straight fly outs (Foster, Concepcion, Geronimo) that allowed Bench to score but otherwise minimized the damage. The next game was a doozy.

Might that have been his last MLB appearance if the Seattle Mariners hadn't thundered their way into existence? Maybe. He was released by Boston in April '76, spent a not-bad season in AAA for the Padres, who then sold him to this new Mariners club in October 1976. And yes, he was on the mound, the starting pitcher, for the first game at the Kingdome on April 6, 1977. First pitch? A strike on the outside corner. Everything went downhill from there—for him and the M's. He played the entire season without winning a game, going 0-7, and in his last start, Sept. 24, he lasted just 1/3 of an inning against the Chicago White Sox: single to Ralph Garr, double to Chet Lemon, wild pitch scored Garr, K to Royle Stillman but double to Oscar Gamble. And that's all she wrote. He was replaced by Sept. callup Greg Erardi, who pitched only six games in the Majors.

Though now 40, Segui kept going. From '78 to '84 he pitched in the Mexican League, where his ERA was under 3.00 every season except for the last. In the 1984 edition of Jim Bouton's “Ball Four,” which is mostly about that 1969 Pilots season, there's a kind of “Where are they now?” section at the end, with Segui's entry reading: “He's living in Kansas City but no one seems to know what he's doing. Except that he still pitches in the Carribean Winter League.” His son, David, also became a Major Leaguer, and had a good season and a half with the Mariners at first base. We traded him to Toronto, mid-1999, for not much. Plus ca change. 

I still like the “Double Diego” idea.

FURTHER READING:

• More in-depth history on Segui from RIP Baseball
• Segui's Baseball Reference page
• His bio via SABR

It was after the 1st inning—after Mariners pitcher Bryce Miller dispensed with the Athletics in order, and the Mariners loaded the bases with nobody out (a Victor Robles double, a scary HBP on Julio Rodriguez, and a walk to Cal Raleigh), but got nothing out of it (Randy Arozarena lined out, Julio was doubled up, then Luke Raley K'ed)—it was after all that when I noticed the dark smoke ring to the north of the stadium. It looked like a UFO from a 1950s sci-fi movie. It kept floating up and up, and some part of me worried that passing airplanes would be trapped by it. But eventually it just dissipated. And eventually I figured it probably came from neighboring Lumen Field. But from what exactly? Not soccer. Some kind of show? Whatever it was, from Section 327, it seemed like a bad omen.

This was my first game of the 2025 season, but, despite two tickets, I didn't ask anyone else along. I knew it would be in the low 50s/high 40s, and I didn't know how long I would last, and I didn't want to drag anyone down. Think of the Cowboy Junkies song about the newly single woman going to a movie on her own:

Black and white, with a strong female lead
And if I don't like it, no debate, I'll leave 

I told my wife I'd stick around until the chance of a no-hitter was gone, but I lasted longer. A's starter Osvaldo Bito obviously gave up that leadoff double to Robles, but Bryce was humming for a while. A's didn't get their first hit until one out in the third, and it went to Other Max Muncey, a single to left, but even he was erased in a double play, 4-6-3, so Bryce faced the minimum through three. He seemed in control. I stuck around for him, and because early on it didn't feel that cold. I stuck around, I should add, despite the usual between-inning shenanigans that pass for entertainment from M's management. I'm increasingly embarrassed by all this: for the Mariners, their fans, all of humanity. We got a “dance-off” that was, I assume, between two plants from M's management; we got that sad “salmon run” thing along the warning track started last year (“@MsSalmonRun, follow us on X!”), which is just uncleverly ripping off Milwaukee's bratwurst race and countless others, and then “Chat JPT,” in which poor J.P. Crawford attempts to answer questions in a Chat GPT voice. I think the last thing I saw was “Split screen speed date,” in which two random people are asked questions to see if they might be a match. They weren't. Seriously, how much time and effort do they put into these? I'd love to be in the room where they spitball ideas. Maybe the ideas came from Chat JPT.

That M's lineup looks like not much. It looks the same as last year's. Or elements from last year I'd assumed we'd jettisoned were still on it. “Oh, we still have Luke Raley. Oh, Mitch Garver. Right, Dylan Moore.” Maybe Ryan Bliss will turn into something. Maybe Victor Robles will rediscover something. Maybe Julio will become something. The 1990s M's were “You gotta love these guys,” while the 2025 M's are “I wanna like these guys.”

By the time I finally fled, we were down 2-1. We'd gone ahead 1-0 on an errant throw to second with two outs in the 2nd inning, allowing Rumbling Rowdy Tellez to score from third. A's took the lead in the 4th on a two-out homerun by Shea Langeliers. Bottom 5, M's seemed to have something going again. J.P. drew a walk, Robles (attempting to bunt) was hit by a pitch, and we had the big guys coming up. But Julio K'ed on three pitches and Cal Raleigh ground into a double play, and that was enough. I was beginning to get cold and so were the M's. 

I actually left at the wrong time. Not because the M's got hot (they lost 4-2), but because the event at Lumen Field had just ended, so I wound up wading upstream against a crowd. Based on their looks, I assumed country music act. But I kept seeing the same sweatshirt, three green claw marks, and the other shoe dropped. It was “Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship 2025” that had belched the dark smoke-ring omen our way. Bless their hearts.