Mistake #1:
Mistake #2:
Marco Scutaro's second inning home run - his fourth of the season, in 213 at bats - helped the A's claim an early 5-1 lead, which was the score I saw when I walked in the door. Next thing I know, I'm watching Bobby Kielty essentially end the game with a two-run double to right. This was not a good day to be a Mariners fan who is prone to jinxes.
In the end, it was just another embarrassing Mariner loss, nothing we haven't seen before. The player most responsible for the final result? Why, none other than organizational favorite Pat Borders, who must've called a friggin' awful game. I mean, if you're going to give him all the credit when Aaron Sele throws a shutout or Jamie Moyer goes seven strong, shouldn't he get all the blame when the pitching goes south? After all, the pitchers clearly have no idea what they're supposed to do when he's not around. They're nothing without his leadership and veteran expertise, which - at least tonight - was conspicuously absent. Calling changeups?? That's a great idea! Make the ball go slower! The hitters will never be able to keep up! Borders' game-calling is in a real funk right now, and we can only hope that he busts out of it in a big way before we fall too far behind the rest of the pack. If things continue like this, the coaching staff might need to take Pat out of the lineup for a few days and have him call some practice games behind a tee.
To the chart:
Biggest Contribution: Ichiro, +6.5%
Biggest Suckfest: Jamie Moyer, -34.2%
Most Important Hit: Boone DP, -6.8%
Most Important Pitch: Kielty double #1, -17.3%
Total Contribution by Pitchers: -35.0%
Total Contribution by Hitters: -13.4%
As the game was winding down, I asked myself, why should I bother putting forth the effort to write a long recap when the team doesn't feel like putting forth the effort to play respectably? So, in lieu of a normal game review, I decided to list some of the things I'd rather do than watch the current 2005 Seattle Mariners:
-Watch the 2004 Seattle Mariners
-Have dinner with Martin Lawrence and Jimmy Fallon
-Perform a Do-It-Yourself colonoscopy
-Complete a Puzz-3D of the American Midwest
-Shut off my water supply and pour raspberry jam into the bathtub, so if someone asks, I can say I took a bath in raspberry jam
-Develop a lethal disease
-Drive to Home Depot and drop as many planks of wood on my foot as I can without screaming, then go back the next day to try and break my record
-Take up smoking
-Attend a WNBA game
-Scroll to the bottom of every spam email I get and unsubscribe myself from their mailing list
-Daydream about Camryn Manheim's body with Mila Kunis' voice
-Pull into Chevron and pay $2.78/gal for gas, because there's a Town Car blocking access to the $2.76/gal Shell pump across the street
-Dig for fossils in the backyard
-Go to an AC/DC concert and ask the guy next to me every five minutes when they'll get to Stairway to Heaven
-Look up "Bigfoot" in the encyclopedia, then check to see if they have the same information written under "Sasquatch"
-Visit Greenland
-Open up a makeshift practice as an unlicensed family physician and offer to undercut the clinic nextdoor
-Pull up all the bricks in the front patio and replace them with similar bricks in an identical pattern
Anyway, the list goes on. Back to work at 7:05pm tomorrow night, as Ryan Franklin takes on Joe Blanton, because life is cruel like that. Maybe it's time that you write your own list, so that when seven o'clock rolls around, you can remind yourself that you have something better to do.