42-33, A Few Things

games like this are utter fun after the fact.

Jeff, you've said several times that we watch sports to be surprised, to see something new. Well I think we invest so much into sports because of games like this. This was an emotional roller coaster from start to finish and at the end it just felt so utterly worth it.

Yesterday was the same way, only better. They say nothing is more dramatic than a walk-off-win, which may be true, but for me, give me your ace closer striking out the side against a great offense with a one-run lead. That's the top of the mountain right there in terms of emotion. The whole time you are painfully aware that one swing ties it and shatters you. But the closer just keeps throwing strikes. It gets louder with each one. One K. Two Ks. Crowd yelling. You're yelling.  But there's still that knowledge of one swing away from tie game. And then, BAM! Shut the door. Absolute bedlam.

Aside from that, and we're really spoiled to have two such moments like that (yesterday and the Bonds gams), walk-offs are neat, especially when they come relatively out of nowhere like Cammy's 19th inning blast years back or this pull-job from Jose.

This is what winning and losing is all about though. I sincerely believe that you cannot fully appreciate wins until you've lost. If the team you root for wins it all the first year you start paying attention, do you feel anything? Emotional investment is like a debit account and you have to make many broken-hearted deposits to make the withdrawl at the end worth it.

It is just impossible to fathom what back-to-back wins like this feels like until you suffer through what most of us have gone through. Perennial losing sucks and perennial winning becomes boring after awhile, but this is perfect right here. It's like 4-hour sex.

I like listening to Dave Neihaus on the radio more then on the television.  Yeah, he still fucks up the flyball calls, but he is having a ton of fun with JJ Putz in the 9th innings.  His enthusiasm for Putz's striking out of Ortiz in the 9th was just awesome to listen to.

I always get the GameDay Radio thing so I can go back and listen to Dave on the radio side.  It'a amazing how different he can be over there when he's the one fully telling the story without visual interferences.

Francona did a swell job himself for a while there until the end, when a still inexplicably roidless Joel Pineiro showed up and promptly sent everyone home. Seriously, why not get him loaded again? Either he sneaks by and develops a fastball again or he gets caught and suspended, in which case your team loses nothing at all, because Pineiro's been horrible

I think they beat you to it.  Pitch sequence and velocity (according to Gameday):

Burke

1. 92mph - foul
   
2. 78mph - grounder to short

Ichiro

1. 93mph - ball
   
2. 92mph - strike
   
3. 93mph - ball
   
4. 93mph - ball
   
5. 93mph - foul
   
6. 92mph - ball

Lopez

1. 92mph - ball
   
2. 92mph - hilarious Manny Ramirez left fielder impersonation for the win.

Pretty consistent in the 92-93mph range.  I don't remember him doing more then touching 90mph for us last season.  Either he was amp'd to pitch against the M's, was genuinely "healthy", or someone oughta check his ass for new dimples.

I understand all the love for Griffey but what was up with the Fans giving Piniero a standing O as he walked off the mound yesterday?  

These were just 3 really exciting games. And now we are back in the race. Oakland lost a few so they are off our back by a game or two. And LAA got beat buy the strong hitting and pitching or the....ROYALS! Thank god. We needed that big time.

My vote for MVP of the bench has to be Jamie Burke. TRUE he hasn't done much. And he is the back up catcher. But he is doing a hell of a job. It seems like we are not at a disadvantage when he is up. True Kenji is much better...but he is just doing incredible i think. The double he got and scoring on Ichiro's hit and throwing out the baserunner. While i'm saying this i want you people to know i don't want him starting or anything.

OH almost forgot. To the guy who said to me, "True mariner fans know when to give up" SUCK IT! Just bend down and suck it. Suck it hard. Don't ever stop believing in your team THAT makes you not a true fan. Even if the team is horrible you look at the positive things for the NEXT year. You don't just give up on your team. So you dear sir can just SUCK IT!

Are currently celebrating our sweep of the Angels. Consider it a favor to you guys since we felt we needed to apologize for taking "Gil Meche" and turning him into "Gil Meche: Good ML Starter." Do everyone a favor and exhort your Mariners to catch the Angels, please? So those gosh-darned Angels fans will shut up?

Anyway, Joel Pineiro's arm is made out of bubble gum. He's awful.

In his newest article, Caple tries to explain why the Yankees are an underdog, and that baseball fan's need to start rallying behind them.  What a sack of shit.  I don't understand how ANYONE can argue this.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/070627

but then mysteriously just walked away from the mob, I think that's just partly the japanese way, they seem to be very reserved with their emotions when it comes to sports.  It still really scared me when i saw it though, I hope he still has some emotional attachment to this team.