2-1, 2-1, 2-1 and 2-1

Good News: The Mariners maintained their hold on the AL Wild Card lead by splitting a four-game series with Cleveland 0-0. The Mariners currently hold the third best record in the AL and the 5th best in all of baseball. Take that BP.

Bad News: The Mariners however lost 0.5 games of cushion over Texas who went 2-1, but the M's did hold ground against the Southern California Disease Carrying Rally Monkeys and against those hope-to-be punching bags in 2007 Oakland A's who also split their last four games, though they actually played their games. (Ooh! Aren't you special Oakland with your baseball games and smart GM. Well, at least we have an upperdeck you can sit in.)

Chart It!

Biggest Contribution: Mike Hargrove(what?!), +0.50%
Biggest Suckfest: Whiny Bitch, 0.0% (haha sucka, no soup for you!)
Most Important At Bat: Jose Lopez non-AB, +Infinity%
Most Important Pitch: Mike Hargrove to Rick Reed, +Unquantifiable%
Total Contribution by Pitcher(s): +7 gobstoppers
Total Contribution by Position Players: -1 cockpunch

(What is this?)

Cleveland used to be a franchise that I admired. And why not? They're well run from the top with Mark Shapiro and Chris Antonneti. They have a group of players that seem likable and possess oodles of talent and they swindled both the Red Sox and the Braves in that Crisp-Renteria-Marte trade. They were high on that B list of teams that you root for whenever they're not playing the Mariners.

But this weekend has done nothing but bring to the forefront everything that is wrong with the Indians. Foremost of all, they indirectly gave us Mike Hargrove, for if they had never hired him in the first place, he never would have had success with those ridiculous teams they had in the late 90s and then he never would have been hired by both Baltimore and Seattle hoping to capture whatever it was that helped Cleveland win so many games [hint: Lofton(112 OPS+), Vizquel(111), Alomar(140), Manny(174), Thome(142), Sexson(102), Justice(124) and Cordero(116)].

That alone should be enough for 9 or 10 death sentences, (and I'm not talking about American death sentences that never get carried out, and if they do, happenso 15 years later and relatively humanely, I'm talking like Medieval European death sentences.) but that's not all. Our miracle 1995 season was ended, as you know, by the Indians. A moment that caused this (Aside: if anyone has a digital copy of that picture with Cora and A-Rod, please post it in here or send it my way. Thanks).

And lets not forget those two trades last summer. And the Indians also gave us Francisco Cruceta, whom Bill Bavasi claimed off waivers in August of 2005. Now, that might seem like a good thing at first. After all, Cruceta pitched well for our minor league teams, but that's exactly why it was cruel. We got to see Cruceta toiling in Tacoma, leading the PCL in strikeouts, while Joel Pineiro continued to confuse live game situations with throwing underhand soft toss to quadriplegic lobotomy survivors. And if that weren't bad enough, at the conclusion of the season, Bill Bavasi decided that it made more sense to DFA somebody with actual talent and keep somebody like this:

Nothing is more cruel than thinking you had something within your grasp only to have it taken away. Damn you Cleveland for making us experience that all over again.

Of course, there's also the whole Jose Mesa debacle and the 14-2 game ultimately costing us the MLB record in wins. Both of which are totally Cleveland's fault and they so far have escaped punishment for. A draft of the above offenses and more is being submitted as we speak to the U.S. Fourth District Courts in the effort to get an injunction places against the Cleveland Indians from participating any further in baseball operations. It seems that is the only way they will listen.

One last thing we most certainly learned is that Cleveland does, in fact, not rock. Actually, compared to Seattle (home to the rocking EMP), Cleveland's Rock% (as measured against the national average of 53% rawkage!) can only be expressed as the natural log of 0.

Buh-bye Cleveland, (hopefully) never to return.