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“For the Mariners, winning baseball games would be a massive cultural shift,” said one researcher.
One cool thing about watching the Mariners all your life is that it doesn’t take much to make a baseball game fun. It also doesn’t take much for a season to start to “mean something”. After all, when you’ve spent enough time squinting at terrible games in an attempt to save a positive aspect, you get used to it. The problem is, it’s not clear whether it’s because you can see the positive better or if you’ve spent so much time squinting that your eyesight is gone.
For me, all it takes for the 2021 Mariners to be watchable is to be able to look at every player in the starting lineup and say “of course I guess they would be signed up for other teams” . The Mariners have missed that bar a disturbing number of times so far this season. When the team throws a Jack Mayfield or some such nonsense into the lineup, it’s hard to watch the game without thinking: okay, but what if you had spent, like the veteran minimum to make this team watchable?
Tonight, even without Jarred Kelenic or Kyle Lewis in the lineup, the Mariners hit the bar. Barely.
The game started off quite demoralizing, with Marco Gonzales’ struggles in 2021 popping up in the first round. Marco gave up three straight runs, good for a deserved point. One wonders if Marco leaves balls in the zone and compensates a little for an 8.5% walk rate which would be his worst since his rookie year.
Half of the Mariners’ round hasn’t really lifted the spirits. Tonight was Twins starter Kenta Maeda’s first game to return from an arm injury that kept him out for three weeks, and it would have been good for the team to have had some success against him. On the one hand, Maeda was visibly rusty. On the other hand, he was on a shorter leash than usual, and the Mariners had the opportunity to eat in the Twins’ relief pen in Game 1 of the series.
They threatened to take advantage of Maeda’s rust. Three consecutive goals at the end of the first ended a streak of twenty games in which Maeda had not given up more than two. The M could not take advantage of it. Dylan Moore came out and Jake Bauers ended the rally before he had a chance to start.
The second set didn’t go much better, with Maeda knocking out the bottom of the Mariner roster in order. Marco’s struggles continued until the third, when two walks and a brace fortunately failed to score. It was after this that the mood of the game started to change.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why it was different. Maybe that’s because the Mariners were finally home after a 10-game road trip. It could have been the coolness of the air after a rainy weekend clearing the skies, setting the stage for a stunning sunset to serve as the backdrop to the game. Or, it could have been the fact that while this Mariners team isn’t great, they were at least starting capable players. There were no players whose mere presence was offensive. And because of that, I felt like players weren’t playing with half a deck of cards. They were put in a winnable situation. They haven’t always been.
It all started with a brace from JP Crawford, a screaming line that sank into the center-right gap. This set the stage for Jake Fraley, who suddenly looks like the best player on this team, to lead Crawford with a well-placed liner on the left.
The Twins were able to respond in the fourth set, but that didn’t change the mood. Sure, the Mariners were losing, but again, and I can’t stress how low the bar is and how bad it is, but there were capable players playing for the Mariners.
All it took was another turn to the top of the order. Jake Fraley drew another step to raise Ty France. France cleared the ball, sending it spinning past third base and into the left corner of the pitch and allowing Fraley to score. A strikeout from Kyle Seager brought Dylan Moore, who came about four feet from a dinger. The ball bounced off the center field fence, which was good enough for a triple RBI to tie the game.
As the cheers from the crowd swelled with 10,000 fans trying to make the noise of the 40,000, it was hard not to feel overjoyed. For a moment, the jubilation turned into a sort of mistrust, directed against the Mariners’ property. We’re here for the team, the cheers seemed to say. We love the team. It was only this afternoon that the Mariners released that statement.
New features are added to The Pen at @TMobilePark. Not listed – get your pic with @RyanDivish and receive a free Ax body spray. pic.twitter.com/1hfoKoUFIG
Give today’s fans the “event within the event” experience they were looking for. Ergo, to attract fans to the stadium by using something other than the product on the pitch. After all, think about how much entertainment you could buy with half a million dollars. Building a competitive team costs a lot more than that! No, let’s stick to the gentle renovations of the pen.
The Mariners had therefore equalized the game and the fans were fully engaged. Booing limit calls against the team, heckling repeated pick-up attempts, cheering balls and growling for strikes. JT Chargois relieved Marco Gonzales and completed two solid innings of high leverage relief, dancing around a pair of singles in the seventh inning to keep the game tied.
Finally, in the eighth round, the team overcame the bump. Jake Bauers watched a ball from reliever Hansel Robles before unloading on a mid-to-midfielder change. The liner looked more like the stuff long doubles are made from at first, but it continued to cut through the thick Seattle air. Finally, when the ball hit the wall, it still had just enough height to clear it, giving the Mariners just one point over the Twins.
Which put the game in the hands of Drew Steckenrider, who has been perfectly usable this year. I wish we weren’t given any closing duties, but listen, you can’t ask for that many. Steck pulled the Twins out in order, sealing the victory for the Mr.
When all is said and done, eight of the nine Mariners tonight have registered a hit. It was tight pressure against a not-so-good Twins team, but not having near-automatic strikeouts in the lineup goes a long way towards winning and being watchable. I know four of the Mariners who started for the Mariners are hitting below the Mendoza line, but I’m comfortable saying all of them are underperforming. Also, they might improve even faster now that not everyone uses Spider Tack.
Some might say it’s a little sad that that’s all it takes to make the Mariners fun to watch. I think it’s liberating. Before winning a World Series, Pennant, Division, Hell, or even a wild card spot, the Mariners just have to give it a try. Not just the gamers. The organization just has to try. The night they tried to say fans were looking for a way not to watch the team, the team forced the fans to watch. I know it might be naive, but maybe John Stanton noticed it.
