2016 Seattle Mariners Advent Calendar - Day 19

The 2016 season was full of walkoffs. There were dingers and doubles and all manner of scintillating conclusions. There was also a 15 inning clunkfest in early August that resulted in Ariel Miranda’s first win, albeit undeserved.

The LL recap is here, but if you don't remember the game, let me remind you. It was a game against Detroit in early August, which would eventually prove crucial to the Mariners final playoff dreams, but at the time felt like an individual line of heat, wavering indistinguishable in the distance on a hot, dog days afternoon.

José Rivera

Kyle Seager hit a three-run homer, as well as a game-tying RBI single in the 15th that set up the walkoff, because Kyle is good, all of the time.

I watched this game by myself, as the rest of the house slept, while maintaining increasingly disjointed conversations with the rest of the staff who were in attendance. Extra inning games are like finding hard candy. It could be delicious, but the flavor isn't indicated and you can only really judge by looking at the color, and shouldn't even consider how long it has existed for. Sometimes you get green apple, and there is heartbreak all around. Other times, however, you get watermelon, and five hours of your life feel validated by a Mike Zunino routine fly ball off of K-Rod scoring a top-speed Adam Lind at one in the morning.

Victories can be jubilant, or they can be relieving. This one counted all the same.