52 things about a 6-7 loss to the Houston Astros

Yeah, I got nothing.

It's not the end of the world, it's only May 3, the Mariners have a set of series against the AL West this week, blah blah blah. But I don't really want to type the same damn thing I've typed a billion times before. So in lieu of doing that, I'm going to just give you a big ol' list, a big list of things about the Seattle Mariners who just lost this here baseball game to the *best team in baseball,* the Houston Astros.

1. The Mariners are bad right now.
2. The Mariners need to stop being bad.
3. The Mariners should start winning baseball games.
4. In order to do this, the Mariners should consider sending down current players who are not performing to their best capabilities. Such as, oh, I don't know, Tyler Olson and Yoervis Medina.
5. God, can you imagine being in that clubhouse right now? I bet Lloyd has been saying a lot of f words, and not the fun kind when he pish-poshes Angel Hernandez and tosses his hat like a kid trying to skip rocks over the river, but the kind when he says Fuck so much that he's wearing spittle down his shirt and Brad Miller is staring at his shoelaces in abject horror. I mean, you can't really feel bad for these people because they all have much more money than any of us, and they get to goof off and throw balls around for a living. But still, the only person that talks back to me when the Mariners lose is the beer I drink, the next morning.
6. It's perfectly fine to bitch about how obnoxious all this has been without being a pessimist and a defeatist. I understand the desire for optimism and everything, but if your answer to the past four days is that YOU GUYS AT LL ARRE GOING TO BE THE FIRST TO BE PRAISING LLOYD AGAIN WHEN THINGS ARE GOING W ELL then yes, no shit, losing is the worst.
7. The Mariners had no business being in this game after they went down 6-1 in the fourth inning. They came back on a series of events that are difficult to assign blame or intention to. Did A.J. Hinch leave starter Roberto Hernandez in too long? Were the M's four runs in the seventh luck or some of that good ol' veteran grit? Who knows. All I know is that it didn't actually matter.
8. Fernando Rodney did not blow a save and Brad Miller did not send in the winning run on an errant throw. Both of those things have happened before and the L in that column counts just the same as this one does.
9. Seth Smith hit a little league home run today, and while Houston are currently the *best team in baseball* they still have a little of that classic Damn It, Astros blood running through their veins, thank god.
10. On that note, knock it off, Astros.
11. I suppose it's a little strange that the Mariners sent Yoervis Medina down with Tyler Olson. But Olson has been ready to go to Tacoma for quite some time. He didn't pitch today, but after spending three innings on the mound after Taijuan's rough outing last night, his time as the Mariners de-facto long guy and second lefty are over, at least for a while. Could we see Joe Beimel back in Anaheim tomorrow? Who will replace Medina?
12. The good news after that paragraph is that Carson Smith is still kind of amazing. In the seventh he struck out Jose Altuve on three straight sliders only inches apart from one another. Jose Altuve. He got out of the inning clean on this, which I mean, think about Tyler Olson and Yoervis Medina, and then look at this masterpiece. Put this shit in the Louvre.

    

13. Smith gave up his first earned run of the season today, which unfortunately won the game after the Mariners had tied it up in the seventh.
14. That is because he unfortunately--along with J.A. Happ--had somehow decided it was a good idea to trot on over to home plate and hand the baseball right to Evan Gattis multiple times this afternoon. Evan Gattis, who has hit four of his six home runs in the past three days off the Mariners. Evan Gattis, who swings at 46% of pitches outside the strike zone. After Saturday here is absolutely no reason this person should be seeing a pitch inside the zone, and I don't say that because the Mariners should be afraid of him, I'm saying that because that would have been the wise way to pitch to him. I don't have anything against Rick Waits but you know, I can't grow a nice moustache so anything else I have to say is null.
15. It's entirely possible that things get a lot worse before they get a lot better.
16. It's also entirely possible that this is the worst that things get and things start turning around soon.
17. Rickie Weeks hit a double today that bounced off that stupid hill and should have been a dinger, except he then scored on an errant throw after getting an awful jump on a stolen base to tie the game. This has been Rickie Weeks as a Mariner in a nutshell. Sitting on the bench, chewing sunflower seeds. Steps up to the plate and puts on his camo elbow pad to pinch hit for a handy match. Wallops the ball nine thousand miles away. Makes a foolish mistake. Carlos Quentin retires. Ball goes into the dugout and he scores a run. Lather, rinse, repeat.
18. J.A. Happ was bad today but then he was alright.
19. Do you really want to talk about J.A. Happ right now?
20. This week is probably going to be the most important week of the Mariners season, until the next. But if they can't go at least .500 over the next seven days, it may end up being the most important week of the year.
21. Robinson Cano is going through a slump right now, but will probably be fine because he's Robinson Cano.
22. He came into today hitting .167 over his past seven games, good for a wRC+ of 11. He went 0-3 on the afternoon with a walk.
23. One week is too short a time to analyze the performance of any professional baseball player, especially one with a track record and a proven ability to ebb and flow through the game at his own pace.
24. The 2015 Mariners don't have a track record (well, they do, and it's 10-15) so it could be dangerous to say that we know anything about this team beyond the fact that they played really shitty baseball this week.
25. Did you know that the fight last night made over $400 million dollars? That number is bigger than the GDP of 29 countries. The ticket rate alone exceeded the net ticket revenue of Super Bowl XLIX, which is insane because the audience was pretty much made up of Marshawn Lynches and Jay Zs and you know they didn't pay a goddamn cent to be there.
26. Current going price for a ticket to see the *best team in baseball* is $15.20 with a few surcharges.
27. As I type, Chris Taylor was pulled from the game in Tacoma.
28. Tal's hill is the worst.
29. Seriously, what the hell were they thinking when they put that in there? I'm amazed that no one has broken their legs yet. In fact, just a few weeks ago I fell down on the straight concrete while walking my dogs and tore a gigantic gash in the side of my face. I didn't even need some skateboard ramp popping up in front of me. Also I sit at a computer and read books for a living, so
30. The Astros are the worst.
31. Back in the day, the photo tool used to be populated with these great pictures of baseball players like falling on their faces or making the derpiest facial expressions after bobbling grounders that were perfect for games like this. On one hand, I suppose it's a bit more professional and economical to populate the wire with sellable photos that can be used for baseball cards and this graphic and that, but man, you guys never let us have any fun anymore.
32. Alright, fine the Astros actually aren't the worst, and even though they've been good in the past you do kind of have to have some sympathy for their fans for putting up with such a mediocre product for so long.
33. Wait, am I really saying that on a Mariners blog?
34. Have you ever thought about how weird it is that Mariners hitting coach Howard Johnson shares a name with a motel chain?
35. Boy you could really say the Mariners slept through this one! Ha!
36. Austin Jackson sprained his ankle trying to beat out an infield grounder today. His foot twisted and fell off the bag as he was running, and had to be supported stumbling on his way back to the dugout. Justin Ruggiano took over in centerfield for him.
37. James Jones is currently hitting .296 in AAA with a wOBA of .314.
38. Austin Jackson was hitting .247 with a wOBA of .285 in the bigs before hurting his foot.
39. James Jones has only played in nine games this season. Austin Jackson expects to be back in the lineup soon.
40. Tomorrow Felix Hernandez pitches.
41. Felix Hernandez has 1,987 career strikeouts. It would be a longshot, but it's entirely within the realm of possibility that we see 2,000 tomorrow evening.
42. Greg Johns guesses that the Mariners will call up Joe Beimel and Mark Lowe to replace Olson and Medina this week.
43. Mark Lowe made his first appearance for the Mariners on July 7th, 2006. He faced six Detroit batters in one inning of work, striking out two and giving up two hits.
44. Felix Hernandez had recently turned 20 years old and was watching from the dugout.
45. Here's something fun to watch, please take a deep breath. 
46. It will be nice if the M's can put this four-game sweep behind them and start fresh tomorrow. Which is, I think, more than a distinct possibility.
47. I am of the opinion that the East Coast does a lot of things really horribly--beer, coffee, non-salty food, etc. But I must admit that Boston has a corner on the hot dog market. They have these crazy buns that look kind of like a piece of bread folded over which at first made me really upset, but then I realized that a hot dog is a sandwich after all, and then I realized that this shit is pretty cool. Plus they were invented here, so you have to give them something.

    

48. It would have been better, I think, had the Mariner just lost by like 10 runs.
49. Actually, I don't know. They were competitive for part of the game, I guess. They proved they could make a comeback, at least in part.
50. It makes you wonder, then, who failed? Where did it all break down? How much of this was luck?
51. Then again, neither situation gives them a win on the day.
52. I don't really have anything else to say about this.