The Seattle Mariners lost

Lucid dreaming is sort of a form of performance art.  It's a selfish one, however.  Or, maybe it isn't selfish because honestly nobody, and I mean, NOBODY wants to hear about your dreams unless they are your lover or are getting paid for the session.  So, leave your dreams to yourself regardless of your command of them.  Back on track here; lucid dreaming is performance art because you are in total control of a realm-bending, rule-defying ride that usually is set within some parameters.  Typically, the lucid dreamer is dumped in to a scenario, follows a thread, and then just says, "Deuces on that shit, dog, I'm eating pancakes."  Imagine that ability in the context of your worst, recurring nightmares.  They are inescapable.  Some people are afraid to sleep because of what their mind conjures up while they slumber.  My roommate in college once dreamed he was killing a bunch of pandas, and that same man is getting a PhD in ecology.  That must have been heartbreaking for him.

Now imagine having power over that.  That is true freedom.  The lucid dreamer, in the face of their greatest nightmares, can simply create a door in to a meadow full of lavender.  Zombie apocalypse?  Nope, in the car with my prom date from high school.  Trapped in a house with a murderer?  Nahhhh.  I'm in the Seychelles playing high-stakes, five-card poker with Rick Ross and Patrick Swayze.  Falling off a cliff?  Not this time.  I'm falling asleep under the stars above the Great Barrier Reef aboard my 58-foot catamaran with a bottle of Lagavulin in one hand and a cone of Molly Moon ice cream in the other.  They can turn the worst of scenarios in to literally their favorite thing.  They can make cakes appear in both hands and another in their lap while dreaming about something as mundane as being in their Intro to Psych class.  To be a lucid dreamer is to be a fan of the New York Yankees.  Even if things are bad, you still got some stupid cake.

To be a fan of the Seattle Mariners is to be laying in bed, cold sweat beading on your forehead.  You know what's coming the moment you close your eyes.  Jay Buhner is about to narrate your worst nightmare.

...

To sleep perchance to dream, or Mike Montgomery

And here's the worst part.  This post was supposed to be about a lot of really, truly great things.  This dream started off so beautifully.  Mike Montgomery was called up to replace an injured James Paxton and did everything and more you would expect of him.  He went six full innings and held the Yankees to only one run on four hits.  He struck out four, walked two, and was hovering in the low 90's with his fastball.  He got guys to chase him down, out of the strike zone, sequenced well, and looked like he belonged on that Safeco mound.  But what was really savvy, and just so poised of him, was that he changed his repertoire up the second time through the Yankee lineup.  He went from a fastball-cutter pitcher to relying more on a curveball for his off-speed.  And this worked.  It worked damn well.

The only thing that kept Mike (MiMo/.37mm) from pitching another frame was his pitch count.  The only thing that got his pitch count high by the end of the sixth was a dog-and-pony show from the umpiring crew, a pissed-off Mike Zunino, and a burning-hot Lloyd during the top of the 3rd inning.  The video is all over the place, and I suggest you find it.  After Brett Gardner had walked earlier in the inning on what certainly looked like a failed check-swing, A-Rod appeared to have not-checked his swing on a 3-2 count with two outs, and Zunino started to walk off the field.  The 1st-base umpire ruled that Alex held his swing, Mikey Z lost his shit, Lloyd lost his shit, and ultimately, Legendary Lloyd jogged nearly the entire diamond to tell-off every member of the umpiring crew.  This particular umpiring crew includes one Tony Randazzo, who started ejecting Lloyd from games back in 2005, or the year that "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas was a chart-topping single.  Things got personal.  The Black Eyed Peas have a tendency to really up the stakes.

And that's how dreams set up.  Some familiar things blend with some unfamiliar things and thus the consequences are never quite clear.  Mike Zunino, a man who I liken to the stoic, boring, but why the hell do you like "Entourage" character of Russell Wilson totally lost his cool in defense of his debuting pitcher.  Lloyd kicked his own hat, which appeared too heavy during his tired.  Mike Montgomery outdueled CC Sabathia tonight, and was in line for a win thanks to the Mariners finally signing the contract on the real Austin Jackson who did this in the bottom of the sixth to give the M's the lead at 2-1:

The real Austin even knows the M's signature double celebration.  He's a fast learner and I like his spunk.  Austin went 4-4 tonight, with one run, one RBI, and a walk.  He was, for lack of a better word, dreamy.

And so I'd eased in to this dream.  The new kid was in-line for a win in his first major league start after showing some real promise.  Do you remember when we traded Erasmo and it was sort of "Well, we had to get SOMETHING to make it a transaction."  Well, for a moment in this dream, imagine we maybe picked up a back-end, major-league starter.  I like this dream.  It feels nothing like my nightmares.

2-1, Top of 8, Carson Smith pitching

You'll often hear that the "test", if that is the correct term, for whether or not one can lucid dream, is simply trying to turn the lights on in a room while dreaming.  However, in this dream, lucidity is achieved by the opposite.  As Seattle Mariners fans in 2015, conjuring something that is lights-out is what brings joy.

See Carson Smith.  He now enters your dream.  You're on the beach, in the Seychelles, Rick and Patrick are having a grand, old time with you.  They even thought your sentiment about sperm whales was funny and unrehearsed.  You could tell that bit ten times tomorrow in real life and not get a single chuckle, but Rick Ross is over there snorting muscato because you are hilarious.  Now, enter Carson Smith to this dream.  You just won the big hand.

This is the dream to top all dreams.

And you are its master.

9th Inning/Extras

The lucid dreamer finds themselves in total control of this poker game in the Seychelles.  They win the hands they choose to.  They joke with Rick, they ask Swayze about his favorite scene to film in "Roadhouse", hell, they even probably have some chocolate cake on the table of their high-stakes poker game right now.  Just, casually eating dessert while having one of the greatest nights of their lives.  This is how Mike Montgomery feels at the top of the 9th.  In control of his wildest dreams.

He, however, is wildly erroneous.  Fernando Rodney takes Mike's former place on the hill.  Throwing changeups here and there, fastballs more there than here.  And soon, Mike realizes something.  There are two outs, a runner on third, and two strikes on Stephen Drew.  He is a strike away from a win.  From a perfect dream.  Something has changed, though.  There are storm clouds over the Seychelles and this isn't a region of the world where "storm" is taken lightly.  Lightning flashes across the open ocean.  The beach feels too exposed now.  Stephen Drew just tied the game on a single to right.

And the storm doesn't stop there.  No, before the storm ends the Mariners would find themselves licking their wounds, filing in to the clubhouse after an 11-inning, 5-3 loss.  They would be living this nightmare because, you see, you, me, Mike Montgomery, we aren't lucid dreamers.  We are trapped in a recurring nightmare, and we don't have a door to that field of lavender.  We have to sit on the beach and hope that someone comes for us.  And maybe they will.  But we can't know that.

Things

• Fernando Rodney was one strike away from a save tonight.  He also blew a save tonight.
• Willie Bloomquist and Rickie Weeks went a combined 0-9 tonight.
• The M's had 14 hits.
• Robinson Cano did these things:

and

• Mike Montgomery just fulfilled his greatest dream and looked more than deserving of a win.  May we all live to say such a thing.

goms