I've never actually been to Cleveland, myself. Looking at a map, I can't recall ever being anywhere particularly close to Cleveland. I have spent a weekend in Rochester, which is closer to Cleveland than I am right now, and probably just about as dreary, but I have no personal experience in Cleveland to speak of. All I have are people's jokes and stereotypes, and here I am playing off of those jokes and stereotypes because today's baseball game didn't leave me with anything better. People have told me that Cleveland is shitty, and today's baseball game was shitty, so, voila, intro magic. Oh, Ms. Jeff was just in Indianapolis, and my impression of Indianapolis isn't a whole lot different from my impression of Cleveland. But, again, jokes and stereotypes. Maybe Cleveland is actually wonderful. I should give it a chance someday. Today's baseball game wasn't wonderful. It was really shitty, for us.

I'm not going to write a full recap. I don't know what I'm going to write beyond this sentence. It's been hard enough to write full recaps after the last few games, and there's another game tomorrow morning at 9:05. It just wouldn't make sense to pour energy into this and at some point I have to do what's sensible. I was actually hoping to have this done by now, so I could have forgotten about this game entirely by now, but I was delayed by a crazy incident with Will Rhymes, so instead of being done by now, I'm here right now, trying to think of the right way to explain to you that you shouldn't want this baseball game explained to you.

Already, I find it hard to work up much enthusiasm for Mariners games against the Indians in Cleveland. I don't know why that is, because Mariners games against the Indians seem to turn out exciting more often than Mariners games against other teams, but I don't have to know why it is to know that it is. This was a Mariners game against the Indians in Cleveland, and it's not like we're entertaining real hopes for the Mariners to make a playoff run. Helping to make the game more appealing at the start was that the Mariners were handing the ball to Felix Hernandez. The Mariners handed the ball to Felix Hernandez, and when they took the ball away from Felix Hernandez, the Mariners were behind 8-3 in the bottom of the fourth. A regular Mariners loss is usually a certain kind of unpleasant. A Mariners loss in which Felix isn't good is a different, more sinister kind of unpleasant. These games sting a little more, and they're a little harder to shake.

Felix said the problem was that he didn't have his good sinker. If I wanted to try to be encouraging, I'd point out that ten of the 17 balls in play Indians hitters registered against him were marked as grounders, but Felix didn't have his command and got hit, and there's no getting around that. Even the worst performances might have some vaguely positive statistical indicators. This was among Felix's worst performances. On the plus side, he had a truly miserable performance against the Angels on May 7, 2010, and then he posted a 1.84 ERA the rest of the way. But let's not try to pretend that there's anything good here.

Hopefully this is a start that stands out as an anomaly. Hopefully this is not a start that fits into a developing pattern. No amount of analysis any of us could do would tell us where Felix is going to go from here, so we'll just have to wait and see. We could find some clues, or what we could interpret as clues, but still we'd just have to wait and see. If you can't tell, this is how I'm excusing myself for skipping the analysis. Not every part of Felix's performance was bad, but too many parts of Felix's performance were bad, and in his next start he will face the Rangers. Fantastic! We all hope for Felix.

If you want actual Mariner positives, you could say there were two of them. Dustin Ackley went 3-for-4 with a homer, and Michael Saunders went 2-for-3 with a walk. Ackley homered in a 1-and-2 count in the third, and he got out in front of a low changeup and yanked it on a line into right. Ackley made a tremendous in-swing adjustment and blasted the ball almost entirely off of his front foot. Saunders' hits were groundball singles but he had more groundball singles than the entire lineup below him had hits, combined. Saunders is clearly in a bit of a funk, at least when it comes to extra bases, but his OPS is still above .700 in the middle of May, which is encouraging in the big picture. It's sad that we're celebrating Michael Saunders for having an OPS above .700 in the middle of May, but it's not so sad when you consider what Michael Saunders was a year ago. And when you consider the Mariners' collection of hitters.

Chone Figgins played. I had forgotten about him, but Mike Carp was a late scratch. Figgins didn't do anything. He went 0-for-3 with a throwing error. So I guess he did something. I wonder how Chone Figgins feels in a baseball game like this, in a job going nowhere on a team going nowhere. Chone Figgins probably has to try hard to live in the moment, because if Chone Figgins were to pull back from the moment, he might realize what he's become, and that the end of his career might be looming.

Jesus Montero looked bad at the plate and looked bad in the field. He went hitless in four at-bats, he allowed a run-scoring passed ball, and he committed a run-scoring throwing error. The convenient thing about games like these is that for young players like Montero, they're learning experiences. Montero having this game now means he might not have this game in the future. It doesn't work that way when Miguel Olivo has games like these. When Miguel Olivo has games like these, that's because Miguel Olivo is a guy who occasionally has games like these. So Olivo probably wouldn't have committed the throwing error. I don't know how I made this about Miguel Olivo. He isn't even playing!

I'm going to stop. Tomorrow morning, Hector Noesi gets the start, and he's interesting enough for me to pay attention. Since the game's so early many of you won't be able to watch, but I'll tell you about what you missed, unless it's all really shitty again. Then I don't know what I'll tell you about. What I'll tell you about in closing right here is that you should admire this home run that Travis Hafner hit, because, whoa, what a home run. That home run spent more time in the air than Jesus Montero spends running to first.

Biggest Contribution: Dustin Ackley, +18.1%
Biggest Suckfest: Felix Hernandez, -31.3%
Most Important AB: Ackley homer, +14.7%
Most Important Pitch: Kipnis double, -9.5%
Total Contribution by Pitcher(s): -31.8%
Total Contribution by Lineup: -21.1%
Total Contribution by Opposition: +2.9%
(What is this chart?)

Felix Hernandez

#34 / Pitcher / Seattle Mariners

Height: 6-3

Weight: 230

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Apr 08, 1986

Ubaldo Jimenez

#30 / Pitcher / Cleveland Indians

Height: 6-4

Weight: 210

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Jan 22, 1984

Well hello there, old friend. Fancy seeing you at third base!

Tuesday night, there was an incident in Toronto you've probably heard about between Brett Lawrie and Bill Miller. Brett Lawrie is a baseball player, and Bill Miller is a baseball umpire, and not Bill Mueller, who was a baseball player. You can read about it here, and I'm linking myself because I play dirty on the Internet. The short of it: Lawrie took a 3-and-1 pitch in the ninth that was probably a ball, but it was called a strike. Then Lawrie took a 3-and-2 pitch that was probably a ball, but it was called a strike. Upset beyond control, Lawrie lost it and slammed his batting helmet by Miller's feet. The helmet bounced up and hit Miller, which is basically an automatic suspension. Lawrie continued to argue and say unpleasant things until he finally made his way off the field.

Watching that happen, my first thought was, "wow, Lawrie is really mad." My second thought was, "you shouldn't do that with your batting helmet." I also had thoughts about the strike zone, and Bill Miller, and how much mad is permissible mad, and then dinner, and then a beer. Eventually I had thoughts about the Mariners. Thinking about the way Lawrie reacted, I realized that the Mariners don't have a guy like that. They don't have a player who would flip out the way Lawrie flipped out, although it was surprisingly not long ago that they had Milton Bradley. And Josh Bard. Josh Bard had a temper. That got me thinking about the way various Mariners would react to the same situation. Following, I speculate. I speculate because I don't actually know the Mariners, and when you don't know actual personalities, it's fun to ascribe made-up personalities.

Dustin Ackley
Remain stoic and expressionless. Take pitch, think about first base, hear call, process call, think about dugout, return to dugout. Give no indication that anything objectionable has happened, or that he's alive inside.

Mike Carp
Turn away from umpire and stare off into space while walking to the dugout. Convey passive-aggressive disapproval.

Chone Figgins
Smile that smile he always smiles and return to the dugout smiling. It is a lie smile - the smile is the opposite of the way that he feels - but Figgins has this down to a science.

Ichiro
Pause, remain by batter's box, casually explain how and why the umpire is wrong, and walk away leaving the vague impression that the umpire should double-check the locks on his doors at home.

John Jaso
Grimace and slow head-lift. The classic reaction to something unfortunate by reserved white people.

Munenori Kawasaki
Thank the umpire for the opportunity and cartwheel back to the bench.

Alex Liddi
Exaggerated, imploring eyebrows. It would almost all be in the eyebrows.

Jesus Montero
Glum wordlessness. For a player who has very little in common with Dustin Ackley, Jesus Montero seems to have a lot in common with Dustin Ackley.

Miguel Olivo
N/A; impossible circumstance

Brendan Ryan
Emotional throwing of arms in the air, jerking the body such that Ryan's helmet slips further down over his eyes as he walks to the dugout talking to himself.

Michael Saunders
Pretty much the loudest possible "FUCK", causing Dave Sims to remind the audience that during a competitive baseball game, sometimes the broadcast will pick up competitive noises.

Kyle Seager
Quick flash of disagreement, indicated by flinching of arms, followed by quiet composure.

Justin Smoak
Walk away, eyes to the sky, chewing with mouth open. Chewing with your mouth open is the most aggressive form of chewing.

Casper Wells
Take pitch, look back, hear call, and drop into a quick squat in the batter's box before standing up and leaving dejectedly.

The Mariners hosted the Indians back in April and faced Josh Tomlin, Justin Masterson and Derek Lowe in what ended up being a very frsutrating series. Remember the big blown lead? Remember the late blown lead? Yeah, the Indians. Hate the Indians.

Or not. Honestly, the Mariners absolutely pathetically anemic offensive performance in Boston against the Red Sox has left me with an overwhelming ennui that makes feigning emotion about this midweek series difficult. Get hits, Mariners. Just get hits.

Continue reading this post »

Think about all of the things you have to do. Maybe you have to schedule or re-schedule an appointment. Maybe you have to respond to a very long personal email. Maybe you have to complete a presentation or compose a ten-page paper or write a long blog post about a Seattle Mariners baseball game. Whether it's physical or not, you have a to-do list with things still left to do, and to some degree it stresses you out. You would feel better if you had gotten more done by now.

One trick to getting more done in less time is to become more active and efficient. Most people don't do this. Another trick to getting more done in less time is to add a bunch of routine shit to the to-do list you do every day already so you can evaluate the list and feel satisfied by how much you've crossed off. "All right, I've already brushed my teeth, washed individual dishes, checked for the mail, and prepared a sandwich. I am on a roll!" Make simple tasks out as assignments and you can feel good about completing your assignments.

If the Mariners' Tuesday to-do list simply read "win baseball game," then by now they would be sorely disappointed. That would've been their one thing, and they didn't do it. In baseball terms, that's an o'fer. But think about the things the Mariners did do Tuesday in Boston. They all woke up and got to the ballpark. They all ate, and they all stretched, and they all threw some baseballs. And then they played a whole baseball game. The game went eight and a half innings instead of nine innings because the Red Sox didn't need to bat a ninth time, but the Mariners did it, they played the whole thing. And through threatening rain! Environmental conditions jeopardized the action, but the Mariners stuck it out. They finished an official baseball game, and at the end of it, they had fewer runs than the other team did.

There was one major thing the Mariners didn't do today, and that was beat the Red Sox. There were several other things the Mariners did do today, and I'm just saying, they're in control of how disappointed they are. When you draft a to-do list, you can set yourself up to fail, or you can set yourself up to feel like you succeeded. It's a choice.

This was one of those baseball games after which people like to tell me "if you just skip the recap we'd understand." It got started at 1:10 for people on the West Coast, it ended just after 4, and in between 1:10 and just after 4, the Mariners were involved in practically nothing of interest to Mariners fans. Mariners games are of interest to Mariners fans, and today the Mariners were involved in a Mariners game, but if every Mariners game were like this one, then Mariners games wouldn't be of interest to Mariners fans, because there wouldn't be Mariners fans. This was just a three-hour void, and if you didn't watch it, you should consider yourself lucky. All baseball is pointless, but this baseball felt especially pointless. This was baseball that drives you to wonder "why baseball?" "Why not," I don't know, "art?"

I don't hold myself to a word count when I'm writing these things, but there is a running word count total in the corner of this editorial box, and this was a game that makes me look at it and sigh. People expect there to be content, and it's not like I don't want to deliver content - it's that I don't know what content there is to deliver. The Mariners were shut out. They have not been shut out as often as the Angels, who have been shut out a bunch. The Mariners' offense has still been worse than the Angels' offense. Today, the Mariners did manage to hit a few balls hard, and some of them were converted into outs, but that isn't anything. It's not going to change your day to learn that Kyle Seager almost had a groundball single, but Mike Aviles cut it off with a nice play behind second. Groundball singles are the least interesting of hits.

The Red Sox were for a time a team in a bit of disarray, but because they're the Red Sox the extent of the disarray was exaggerated, and the Mariners just ran into Jon Lester and Josh Beckett. Lester and Beckett are very good pitchers, and the Red Sox have a very good offense. I think the Mariners just functioned for the Red Sox the way the Twins functioned for the Mariners - when the Mariners were finished playing the Twins, we felt a lot better about the state of things. Red Sox fans probably feel a lot better about the state of things, having seen these last two games. Maybe it'll prove short-lived but that's probably the way things feel now. The Red Sox cruised. They were never in danger, so these two games were comfortable for a team that hasn't had many comfortable games.

Would you believe that it was just in his last outing that Josh Beckett got rocked? He got rocked, he got booed, and he got criticized to all hell for playing golf. Today he spun seven shutout innings, with four hits and nine strikeouts. As Lester did the night before, Beckett today considered flirting with a no-hitter. As with Lester the night before, Beckett had his bid snapped in the fourth by an infield single. Beckett did a lot of what he wanted, and when he did something that wasn't what he wanted, the Mariners couldn't really make him pay.

You'd be amazed by some of the things that are possible in baseball. Josh Hamilton hit four home runs in one game. Aroldis Chapman can throw a baseball a hundred miles per hour. Earlier today the San Diego Padres scored four runs in four innings against Stephen Strasburg. Today it felt impossible that the Mariners could score against Josh Beckett. It probably was not impossible. Impossible is a very strong word. But the Mariners didn't score against Beckett, for seven innings, and that's evidence. The team just looked so weak.

It's all over now, at least. The Red Sox series, I mean, not necessarily the Mariners looking weak. The Mariners do not make another trip to Boston the rest of the year, so say goodbye to baseball played within geometric nonsense. Now the Mariners can get back to losing or possibly winning in baseball stadiums that don't look like a baseball stadium that got in a car accident.

Continue reading this post »

Biggest Contribution: Ichiro, +3.9%
Biggest Suckfest: Kyle Seager, -10.5%
Most Important AB: Montero fly out, -5.3%
Most Important Pitch: Ortiz homer, -10.7%
Total Contribution by Pitcher(s): -10.6%
Total Contribution by Lineup: -39.4%
Total Contribution by Opposition: 0.0%
(What is this chart?)

Blake Beavan

#49 / Pitcher / Seattle Mariners

Height: 6-7

Weight: 240

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Jan 17, 1989

Josh Beckett

#19 / Pitcher / Boston Red Sox

Height: 6-5

Weight: 225

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: May 15, 1980

Boy do two-game series ever feel casual.