Mariners Pay Visit to Proctologist, Proctologist Extracts Victory

Something has been rotten in the state of Denmark. Or, more specifically, in the state of the Mariners’ collective gut. Perhaps it was something they ate, or they had too much to drink the last few nights, or they’ve just been watching the news. More likely, they’ve been (in)digesting the fact that the Twins are actually ahead of them in the Wild Card standings. In any case, the discomfort got so bad that a trip to the doctor’s was in order.

Even Hippocrates himself would have had some trouble curing what was ailing the M’s. The hitting came out of the gate showing symptoms of weak ground balls, pop ups, and the occasional line drive hit right at a fielder. Mike Zunino and Guillermo Heredia strung together a couple of hits in the second, but Ben Gamel’s luck seems to be good and used up at this point.

Ariel Miranda wasn’t faring much better. Miranda threw pitch after pitch, ball after ball. He walked the bases loaded not once, but twice. And yet, he somehow still had a no-no going after doing it once in the 3rd inning. There was a hit in the 4th, but still no run! It was truly one of the worst scoreless outings I’ve seen, at least among outings that went more than an inning or two.

Things weren’t looking good for the team as they stumbled into the doctor’s office, holding their gut and wincing with every movement. The nurse saw the state of them and, alarmed, immediately began to scribble into his chart, or whatever it is that nurses and doctors scribble into.

Unfortunately, this is the United States, where the Mariners would have to wait hours for a ten-minute doctor’s appointment. The nurse, unable to be of any real immediate help, did what any half-decent nurse would do. He gave them an alka-seltzer. It wasn’t much, and it was a sad excuse for real medicine, but it did the job for a second. Mike Zunino rose from his seat and suddenly felt well enough to do this.

Unfortunately, Zunino immediately felt the need to grab his stomach again. “I think I’m gonna hurl.”

As the minutes stretched into hours, the Mariners didn’t feel (or get) much better. The players could barely stand, much less swing. They eventually grew fed up with waiting. We can pull through, they thought. This isn’t really so bad. They stood up to leave.

Guillermo Heredia had no delusions of feeling any better.

They sat right back down. They were definitely gonna be here a lot longer than they’d intended to be.

Somewhere around the 10th inning, a door creaked open. Someone came into the waiting room. “Alright, I’m here to see... what the hell are these names? Um, just the Mariners, I guess.”

Finally. The team got up, trying to conceal their pent-up frustration with having had to wait. They were directed to a small room, told to sit on a piece of a paper masquerading as a sheet. The nurse started to close the door with a cloyingly sweet smile, but not before saying “We’ll just have to have a little talk with the doctor before she comes in to see you, alright hon?”

The door didn’t close all the way, allowing the Mariners to hear the “little talk.”

“Doctor. They can’t hit. They can’t pitch. I don’t even know how they’re still alive. They should, by rights, be dead. This is one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen.”

Sounds of the doc ruffling through the chart

“It’s alright, nurse. These symptoms make sense. They’ll live yet, we just need to do a quick extraction procedure. I think there’s a win stuck up there somewhere.”

I won’t subject you to the details, but something something rubber glove snapping something something.

“I think there’s something here... oh yup, definitely something.”

With a grunt and a yank, the doctor was suddenly holding a glistening victory.

She tried to hand it to the Mariners.

“Uh, no thanks. We’re just happy that we got it out of our system.”

Suddenly feeling better, everything seemed a hundred times funnier to the Mariners. Well, except “Papa Pazos” and “La Pesadilla.” Just in time for the weekend, the Mariners felt ready to take on the task of getting some more wins. Hopefully, the kind that didn’t need to be pulled out of anywhere.

Go Mariners.