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The Mariners lose, we win

The team we root for did not win, as another and far more esteemed author would say.

By Nathan Bishop

Hello, friends. Thank you for joining me at this late hour. I am sorry that the recap is so late. There were a good many things that happened in this game tonight, many of which will not surprise you. Some will surprise you. But in the end, like a formulaic super hero film with a mildly interesting twist, it all ended up like you expected.

The Mariners almost won, but then the bullpen did the thing it does, blowing a 3-1 lead in the 9th. Then they allowed three runs in the 10th and lost 6-3. There were other things. The beam of pure sunlight made flesh Franklin Gutierrez hit a 2 run double. The Mariners loaded the bases against Carlos Rodon with no one out in the 2nd and failed to score. Vidal Nuno turned in arguably the best performance of his Mariner career. But in the end the Mariners, well, they just lost again. This is what they do. I wish I could say that A) I watched enough to give you more analysis and B) I really cared at this point.

You see Matt Ellis was in town tonight, and only tonight. My predecessor, Scott Weber said this before the game:

I don't really think that's an exaggeration. There are so, so, so many writers that are a part of Lookout Landing and I don't think any of us get to do this amazingly worthwhile and rewarding task if Matt, for 3 years now, didn't spend as many nights as not sitting in front of his computer in Rhode Island, pounding out creative epic after creative epic.

There's no more proof of Matt's importance to us all, and to you all, than the fact that almost the entire staff made a point of attending tonight's game with him. I lost track of how many we were in number. We were joined by Kenner, MES, Cornhole and others. The Mariners lost and we didn't care a bit. There was so much love for Matt and a celebration of who and what he is. Thank you for coming.

By the way, I would be remiss if I didn't mention this:

I don't really see how this makes the team better at this point, even Fernando Rodney in 2015 is at present one of the more competent arms in the bullpen, but I know it brings a disturbing chapter to a close for many. Goodbye Fernando, we enjoyed 2014's quiver.

Anyway after the game ended we went the only place we could: We went to Gastropod, host of the last 2 Spring Training Lookout Landing meetups. SeaTownie has always, without fail treated us right and tonight he took us through the full tour of the fabulous, historic warehouse his soon to be closed restaurant is located in. Some of the artifacts in the building are just beyond amazing. Look at the headline pic of this article, look at this:

Kitsap Lake

At the end of the day we sat up top at Gastropod, the same place we all gathered last Spring and sang the praises of Brad Miller. Gastropod is closing September 11, Cody and Travis' new venture Mollusk is opening soon in South Lake Union. You should go.

Circling back around, weakly, as it's very late, tonight was simply another data point in what is now a trend of Lookout Landing being greater than the Mariners. The people that write, comment, read and participate in this community have created something so very special. I told as many people as I could tonight that I doubt I will ever be a part of anything in my life in any capacity containing as many talented, kind, helpful and fun people. One day, tomorrow or 10 years from now, the Mariners will be good. We will have a lot of fun, we'll cry, we'll cheer, and we'll scream ourselves hoarse. But that won't be one tenth as special to me as when we all got together at Safeco on a Saturday night to watch yet another bad Mariner team lose like idiots while we all had the time of our lives. Thank you LL.

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