Game 69, Red Sox at Mariners
King Felix vs. David Price, 7:10pm
Happy Felix Day. Yes, Felix Days haven’t been the most joyous occasions this year, but everything else about the team is so damn fun that it’s all feels like a big party. Felix has been the rotation’s weakest member, and today he’s up against one of the best teams in baseball – possibly the best. Opposing him is a Cy Young winner. I have no idea how the M’s are supposed to win this, but I now believe that they will. Maybe their 1B who’s sporting a sub-.300 OBP will hit another critical HR. Maybe Mitch Haniger will continue a Troutian hot streak. Maybe it’ll be Mike Zunino. It doesn’t really matter, and that’s the fun part.
At different times this year, this team has been carried by frankly unsustainable performances. When those players return to the mortal plane, someone else steps up. This is how they’re able to overcome a month+ cold snap from Dee Gordon, their lead-off hitter who is ALSO sporting a sub-.300 OBP. Because Ben Gamel decided to get off the mat and do that weird .450 BABIP trick for a while. Or Ryon Healy who was AWOL for April, then essentially won the Cleveland road series single-handedly, then fell apart again, and is now a serious power threat again. The fact that it won’t last doesn’t matter – he’s helping the team win, and now we just expect someone else to fill in for him. Maybe Kyle Seager will finally go on a tear. Maybe Nelson Cruz’s hot streak just doesn’t end for another month and a half. Embrace the weirdness, revel in the run differential-flouting timeliness of the M’s in 2018. Have fun.
Being an M’s fan has not, historically, offered a surfeit of Fun Times. Certainly in the last 17 years or so they’ve been especially rare. So we’ve got to enjoy this for the crazy, unexpected bounty that it is. It may all blow up, but that’s irrelevant to what we do with this gift we’ve been given. Go Felix, and Go M’s.
1: Gordon, 2B
2: Segura, SS
3: Haniger, RF
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Healy, 1B
7: Heredia, CF
8: Span, LF
9: Zunino, C
SP: Felix Hernandez
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13 Responses to “Game 69, Red Sox at Mariners”
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Maybe Mitch Haniger will continue a Troutian hot streak.
Credit Marc for the creation of a new and needed adjective.
Felix’s velocity is up and the results are encouraging.
I’m just curious where the increase came from.
Felix still gives up too many key home runs though. Especially this year.
Thought Felix pitched extremely well all things considered. Kept us in the ball game and for the most part looked like regular old King Felix. Even if we dont pull out a win tonight, if tonight was the beginning of Felix getting back on track, that’s best silver-lining one could ask for right there!
Let’s Go M’s!!
7 innings, 2 runs.
I’ll take that any night.
Mike Z swings at ball 4 again. How much are we sacrificing for defense?
Zunino is worth 1.1 fWAR.
The answer: not much. But that 40% strike out rate has to come down.
Well, first place was fun while it lasted.
Yup….I think we’ve seen the last of 1st place, or even close. The good news is, that we’ve set the foundation for a Wild Card maybe????
^Why not “even close”? If our rotation continues to pitch they way they have, this should be a fun race to the finish line.
Seattle’s staff has been the best in baseball over the last 30 days and better than Houston’s over the last 60.
We face them 13 more times before it’s all said and done. They’re still the favorites, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we upset them, or made it close.
Stevemotivater, I have a feeling that the rotation can’t hold up for the next 3 months, and Houston will get some distance simply because of the schedules. We have a tough month ahead (6 more with Boston?). There’s always hope, but we’ve all seen how that works out over the years!
It’s just that having a glass half empty mindset is part of Mariners fandom and as well as the Mariners have played, the Astros are that much better and a wild card berth only guarantees one more game.
Of course health is the key, and I don’t think Seattle’s the better team. But anything can happen in baseball, and the gap between Seattle and Houston doesn’t look nearly as large as it did in the spring despite some currently cold bats. The series against Houston will be telling.
With that said, it would be good if Gordon, Seager, and Zunino picked things up a bit at the plate.