Mariners, Athletics, Last to Finish Marathon

Mariners current draft spot: 3rd

Well, this is the end. The last Mariner-related series preview of the 2011 season. Last year, we carried on with game threads for the playoffs and I imagine we will do the same this autumn. Something about watching playoff baseball (on mute) was enjoyable last year. Seeing crowds excited, games that meant something and players that didn't suck was all refreshing after the doldrums of the 2010 season. Perhaps I'll throw up some playoff series or game previews as well this time if there's sufficient interest and I have time available. 

As it is, the Mariners end the season at home against the Athletics; a team I feels like the Mariners play only in April and September and always in Oakland. At least next year might be in Japan. That'll be fun! There's nothing like having to wake up around 4am to watch the Mariners begin their baseball season; that is, except for all the things that are like that. There are many things like that. Mostly things that involve waking up early. In fact, there's almost always something else that is like the thing to which you might utter "there's nothing like." What a dumb phrase.

Mon 26 Sep 19:10
JASON VARGAS*	BRANDON MCCARTHY

It was my lunch time when I was writing this so my thoughts were on getting through something to write about Jason Vargas and Blake Beavan so that I could go get food when I decided to stop trying to force something and just get lunch. Which led me to contemplate how the Mariner starters would equate to various food groups. I thought that Felix Hernandez is a bit like pho because it's filling and I could have it every day and never feel bored by it. I knew the characteristics about Michael Pineda (good, but a bit one-dimensional) that I wanted to analogize, but couldn't come up with the perfect fit and at that point decided this wasn't a very good exercise because there's too many similar pitchers on the Mariners right now. 

All of that preceded my determination that Jason Vargas is like a slice of pepperoni pizza. You know what you're going to get. Sometimes the slice is a little bigger, sometimes it's more greasy and sometimes the quality of the pepperoni is great or awful, but pizza is pretty much pizza and you don't want to be paying a lot for it. 

Tue 27 Sep 19:10
BLAKE BEAVAN	TREVOR CAHILL

If Jason Vargas is pepperoni pizza then Blake Beavan is a slice of cheese. He's everything that Vargas is, but without the mystery or intrigue of the pepperoni. Not that I dislike Beavan the pitcher. I like cheese pizza. It fills a need and a desire. But I am never going to crave cheese pizza just like I will never crave watching Beavan pitch. I occasionally want pizza, but in my thoughts it's always pizza with a variety of toppings. What I really want are the flavors of the toppings plus the unhealthy goodness of cheese. I should have just compared Mariners to various types of pizza. Michael Pineda is anchovies because whatever else you try to put on there, you'll still notice the anchovies. Yeah, that idea had potential.

Wed 28 Sep 19:10
ANTHONY VASQUEZ*	GIO GONZALEZ*

Barring a one-game playoff or any other scheduling shenanigans, Wednesday is the final day of regular season baseball in the 2011 season for every team. And you know which game is the last of the day? Yep. This one. It begins 30 minutes after the Dodgers in Arizona which itself is an hour later than the next latest game in the day. Baseball will wrap up and quite likely the Mariners and Athletics will be the final teams playing. Also possible is that this game ends with a Mariner at bat, which might be another fitting end to a season short on hitting prowess. I hope this game goes to extras. I hope it goes 20 innings. I hope Bud Selig has to step in and stop the game for the good of humanity. Only he can't so it just continues and continues. And laying in the dirt, years from now, Steve Delabar contemplates his ruined arm that has thrown 4,233 pitches over innings 802 to 1,079 and wonders, "why, why did this happen?"