I hate this feeling. I hate how quickly and easily we as Mariners fans jump to expecting the worst outcome possible because of how often we’ve been experienced the shittiest outcomes of being a baseball fan. No, the outcome of the 2018 Seattle Mariners season does not completely hinge on the performance of Felix Hernandez. No, the season is not over before it starts. No, the fucking hats are not cursed. Curses aren’t real. Right? RIGHT?

This is all just complete bullshit. Felix’s first spring training start begins with a good first inning and then ends with a line drive comebacker directly to the upper right forearm of his pitching arm. This is after the projected starting first baseman Ryon Healy has surgery for bone spurs in his hand. This is after projected starter Erasmo Ramirez is shut down before games even start with a lat strain. This is after the second or third string first baseman Daniel Vogelbach gets a massive contusion on his foot from a HBP. This is after Mitch Haniger, whom the team needs very much to be at his healthy peak again, also comes down with a sore hand. This is after Nelson Cruz takes a pitch off his wrist but is fine because he probably has an adamantium skeleton.

BUT STILL.

Why is it like this?

As a fan, you kind of ease into the warm, good feelings of baseball as a pastime once you start watching or listening and it’s so easy to forget that the specter of life-threatening injury is constantly lurking in the spaces between every pitch and swing of the bat. Comebackers are terrifying. You can go weeks and weeks between actually seeing one or having one happen to you, but it’s a possible outcome to every single pitch. Baseball isn’t a human-on-human contact sport of physical might like football or hockey, but this constant threat of bodily harm to the players we love most is always there in the margins of our noble, regal sport.

I don’t have any easy answers or balms for our aching Mariners fan souls, other than the fact that getting hit in the forearm is theoretically less serious than the elbow, hand, or, heavens forbid, the head.

Highlights

• Dee Gordon had a nice game. In the first inning, he reached first base on a error following a ground ball. In the second inning, he went ahead and smacked a three run home run. Here is the only other time Gordon has hit a three run home run in his (regular season) career:

Here is some rough footage of the home run, which appears to have landed on a woman’s foot on the right field berm. She is listed as day-to-day.

• In case it ever comes up on a trivia quiz, just remember that Matt Hauge hit the first Mariners home run of Spring Training 2018. It was a solo shot off Brian Duensing.
• Before Felix’s exit from the game, he had a very nice first inning with a flyout from Albert Almora, Jr., a strike out of Javy Baez, and a strike out of Anthony Rizzo:

• After several quiet, slow, and morose innings, infielder Seth Mejias-Brean went ahead and hit a grand slam to make it 9-2 in the top of the seventh. It’s okay if you don’t recognize that name because I didn’t either, but I know it now, god dangit. Way to go, Seth.
• The Mariners frittered away most of their seven run lead in the bottom of the eighth to make it 9-7, and then finally gave away the rest of it in the bottom of the ninth as the Cubs tied it up 9-9. Managers Scott Servais and Joe Maddon mercifully decided to not play extra innings. The fact that managers can make that decision to shut the game down with a tie is, hands down, the greatest feature of spring training baseball.

Lowlights

• Liveshot of the LL Slack when the comebacker happened:

• If you want to see the video footage, it’s right here. Fair warning, though, it really sucks to watch and it made me very, very sad:

Today in “It’s Spring Training for everyone!”

• Gameday started off a solid 10 minutes behind the radio feed and never, ever caught up. Not even close. The ads still worked, though.
• Rick Rizzs told a story in second inning about burning garbage in a trash can in his high school team’s dugout to stay warm during an early spring game. He also walked to school uphill both ways in the snow.
• MLB.tv feed still refusing to call players by the names fans actually know them as:

• Aaron Goldsmith waited until the fifth inning to roast Rick Rizzs for apparently bringing his laptop into the booth for the first time ever. Remember that, Baby Boomers. If Rick Rizzs can start keeping score with a laptop some 40+ years into his broadcasting career, you TOO can learn a new technology or skill. Okay, cool, there’s the inspirational note to end the recap on. Queue swelling orchestral music. Fade to black. Roll credits.

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Surprise! A mid-credit stinger for ya!

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Tomorrow brings us split squad action against both the Kansas City Royals and the San Diego Padres. James Paxton is starting the the Padres game (chucks entire 5 pound sack of salt over shoulder). It’ll be fine.