Last-place Mariners do surprising thing on Sunday (lose)

The Mariners lost today.

This you know, and this you were--I'm sure it's safe to say--kind of expecting, despite the fact that Felix was set to take the mound against a team which he always seems to grind into dust. Except you and I both know what year it is.

The Mariners lost today because they are bad, but they also lost because they did really stupid things in addition to their particular bad-having-ness. Like, they did mind-numbingly, earth-shattering just absolutely...awful things, things you shouldn't even do on rookie mode with a low gravity setting while playing a baseball video game. Bad strategic moves in addition to bad baseball is an unfortunate trend which has become all too common this season, and it has given us a fair share of Mariner moments like this one

one of these,

And this here guy

Yeah, today's 2-1 loss to the Yankees was another game where Felix threw a bunch of pitches and then left in the seventh inning after giving up only a single run, forcing him to spend the rest of the game in the corner of the dugout with his towel over his head (also because it was 100 degrees and you can see the air over here, but please keep your righteous anger directed towards the bad baseball players, thank you very much).

Today gifted us another beauty where we saw the Mariners having trouble stringing hits together before managing to sneak something past a tiring starter they should have been beating in the first place, only to again witness them sleeping on the job a few moments later. It was another game in which they outhit their opponent (7-6) and then left town with a scarlet 'L' burned into their foreheads and on their asses, but it's fine because they have good drink service on the flight back to Detroit.

Today was a baseball game that Jack Zduriencik surely watched from wherever it is he watches games, probably gnashing his teeth and biting the hell out of his fingernails while watching Mike Zunino bunt two runners over in the fifth with no outs, leading directly to the only run the Mariners would score all game.

Jack Zduriencik watched this, and probably thought HOLY SHIT before flipping open his 2016-2017 calendar, crossing out Norway on the page starting with the world April. Jack Zduriencik then may have gotten a little giddy as Chris Taylor came up to bat, right before noticing he had been instructed by Lloyd McClendon to bunt the a runner over with no outs in a tie game right before Mike Zunino came to bat. Bunt before Mike Zunino came to bat. Bunt before Mike Zunino came to bat. Bunt before Mike Zunino came to bat. Jack Zduriencik erased that new line and then wrote With Lloyd underneath his original plan.

It was a game that gave people concern for the way Felix was handling his legs, perhaps his hips, but then again we've kind of exhausted options for blaming so you can't really worry about that without hearing more, and yet, the rail of the ship is right over there, folks.

It was a game that gave us a Real Neat catch from Nelson Cruz, except for the fact that it almost felt like a cosmic joke rather than run prevention.

It was a game in which Dustin Ackley and Chris Taylor and Jesus Montero and 2015 Franklin Gutierrez each got a few at-bats, which for some reason didn't cause you to flinch when you remembered that this team was supposed to be built for postseason competition.

It was a game in which you witnessed Mike Zunino continue to have the absolute, bone-jarringly worst at bats in all of Major League Baseball (this is not hyperbole) before deciding it would be a good idea for command specialist Fernando Rodney to throw professional strong person Mark Teixeira a fucking fastball in a 1-2 count. It was a game in which you realized that Mike Zunino might need to wear a red hat in order to clear more than his batting average.

But mostly it was just a game, another one of those games in which the Mariners played atrocious baseball and then just kind of walked back to the hotel, because it was, pretty much, scripted before it even started. We've had thousands of these since you've been alive, and for some reason we keep waking up each morning with breath in our lungs and a pulse beating deep within our chests, despite the fact that it's been medically proven that bad baseball actually poses a real threat to your personal health and well being. Especially within the greater Seattle-Tacoma Metropolitan Area.

We could think about all that, and we could write long soliloquies or imagine what a dentist from Bainbridge would think about the whole thing. We could cuss and pick apart plate discipline, and argue exactly why it would have made more sense to see Carson Smith throwing a high-leverage eighth inning in a must-win tie game. We could formally call for Jack Zduriencik's job, or say things like he's got the clubhouse but it may not be enough. We could do that, sure. I just...can't.

Instead, right now, this week, this month, this year, I keep telling myself:

We're going to make it.

If we've survived Bavasi and Doug Fister and Chone Figgins and Adam Jones and Milton Bradley and regular SEA-HAWKs chants outside Edgar's, then we can also survive this. If we can put up with over a decade of one of the most mismanaged franchises in all of American sports, then we can make it to October 4th, and we can make it to April 4th, and we can even make it to next weekend. It might take some booze, it might take some swearing, and hell, it might take a fiddle cat completely out of context just to keep you sane. But you and I are both going to make it. I mean, look, even Wikipedia is trying to give you a framework through which to cope with all this madness!

So say it with me. Close your eyes, and say it:

We're going to make it.

We're going to make it.

Say it, think it, breathe it, smell it. We are going to make it.

We are going to make it.*

*healing mantra not guaranteed effective for most players of the Seattle Mariners Baseball Organization, front-office executives employed at 1516 First Avenue South, or various Minor League instructors connected to the parent club. Edgar's good, though.