The funny thing about following a team like Seattle is that, where a little hot streak can get you excited and put you in a good mood for a few days, the losses don't really sting, because you're never expecting the success to last very long. Particularly the losses against arguably the best pitcher in baseball. I shouldn't think any of us will ever be accused of overconfidence. The Mariners are just good enough to keep you from becoming a bitter, irascible malcontent, but just bad enough to keep you honest. I'd call it a happy medium.
Biggest Contribution: Raul Ibanez, +12.1%
Biggest Suckfest: Joel Pineiro, -29.2%
Most Important Hit: Ibanez single, +9.5%
Most Important Pitch: Castro double, -10.9%
Total Contribution by Pitcher(s): -30.7%
Total Contribution by Hitters: -27.1%
The day game took place while I was at work, and whenever I try to watch the archived footage I find myself wondering when Joel decided to go from the well-cultivated chin tickler to the full-on face carpet rather than paying attention to the game itself, so in lieu of trying to write a recap about stuff I didn't see I decided to plug the entire active roster into MyHeritage.com's face recognition program instead. The name on the left is the Mariner, and the name on the right is his closest celebrity look-alike as determined by the software:
Adrian Beltre: Pedro Martinez
Yuniesky Betancourt: Eminem
Willie Ballgame: John Wyndham
Carl Everett: ...Pedro Martinez
Felix Hernandez: Forest Whitaker
Emiliano Fruto: Juan Pablo Montoya
Eddie Guardado: Juan Pablo Montoya?
Raul Ibanez: Mark Webber
Ichiro: Ichiro (I guess that's appropriate)
Kenji Johjima: Hideki Matsui
Jose Lopez: Arvydas Sabonis
Julio Mateo: Toshiro Mifune
Gil Meche: Robert Zemeckis
Mike Morse: Shaquille O'Neal
Jamie Moyer: Sergio Vieira de Mello
Roberto Petagine: Condoleezza Rice
Joel Pineiro: Olusegun Obasanjo
JJ Putz: Burt Reynolds
Jeremy Reed: Cristiano Ronaldo
Rene Rivera: Sonny Rollins
Richie Sexson: Michael Schumacher
George Sherrill: Ron Howard
Rafael Soriano: Tim Montgomery
Jarrod Washburn: Gary Oldman
Jake Woods: Matt LeBlanc
To answer your questions, no, the software doesn't work very well, and yes, it's free. I think those two facts are related. Of course, by about the second comparison I realized that the hats all the players have on in their profile portraits throw everything off, but by that point I was already committed to the idea, so I had to run with it anyway. On the plus side, the whole Yuniesky Betancourt/Eminem thing just made my Friday that much better. For what it's worth, I always thought that the goateed version of Joel Pineiro bore a striking resemblance to Prince, but I'm afraid that particular Joel is gone forever, and so is his arm. But then, when he puts this much stress on his shoulder every time he throws a pitch, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised.
On the off chance that you were actually paying attention to the game today, let's hear what you thought. Otherwise, Washburn/Escobar tomorrow at 7:05pm PDT.