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As the trade deadline winds down and the Mariners have made several good (or at worst, lateral) moves, one can help but feel like nothing was done that will significantly increase the 2021 team’s playoff chances given the strength of the rosters of their direct Wild Card and division competition. But! Contention was never really the goal or expectation for 2021, especially not on paper, and the cross hairs have been set on 2022 for quite some time as the main target. Diego Castillo and Abraham Toro both make the 2022 team and beyond better, so that gives me some reassurance. All that’s left is to spend money on quality bats in the offseason. Right, Mariners?
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Anyways! That’s not quite what we’re here to talk about today. The Mariners play A LOT of games against AL West rivals the rest of the season. The schedule is really back-loaded with these chumps, including nine (9!) games against the Texas Rangers in the next 3.5 weeks. Having just played quite well against the two best teams in the division, the Houston Astros and Oakland Athletics, it got me thinking about how much I truly despise all the other teams in the division. There are many historical reasons to dislike all of them, but let’s go with the current reasons off the dome right now.
- The Astros are obviously evil, cheating, and heartless bastards who showed up in the division like a turd in the punch bowl in 2013 and have sucked the joy out of the game at literally every opportunity.
- The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are despicable for their embarrassment of generational talents being squandered due to......I honestly do not know how they’ve been so bad at this with the players they’ve had the last 10 years. Oh yeah, pitching is a thing!
- The Athletics continue to field 90 game+ winning teams despite never, ever paying to keep any of their major talents, playing in a dilapidated toilet of a stadium, having sentient cornball foodie Instagram post Mark Canha on the team, and constantly pissing in the Mariners’ cereal every time the Mariners have flirted with contending the last 20 years. The A’s are always there to be slightly better and/or luckier.
- The Rangers are going to continue to post near-100 loss seasons in their brand new oversized Tuff Shed of a stadium for the foreseeable future and now they don’t even have Joey Gallo for entertainment’s sake. They are bad in an incredibly boring and insulting way.
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And now, I want to take the pulse of the LL Hive Mind to see where everyone else is at on their AL West hateration. To the polls!
Poll
Your number 1 most hated AL West team
This poll is closed
-
15%
Angels
(138 votes) -
68%
Astros
(612 votes) -
14%
Athletics
(128 votes) -
2%
Rangers
(19 votes)
Poll
Your number 2 most hated AL West team
This poll is closed
-
35%
Angels
(298 votes) -
24%
Astros
(203 votes) -
35%
Athletics
(294 votes) -
4%
Rangers
(38 votes)
Poll
Your number 3 most hated AL West team
This poll is closed
-
36%
Angels
(298 votes) -
8%
Astros
(72 votes) -
31%
Athletics
(252 votes) -
23%
Rangers
(188 votes)
Poll
The AL West team you couldn’t give 2 shits about
This poll is closed
-
6%
Angels
(56 votes) -
7%
Astros
(57 votes) -
15%
Athletics
(122 votes) -
70%
Rangers
(572 votes)
Feel free to post your hate rankings in the comments. Mariners, please go mess with Texas and sweep the Rangers. Have a great weekend, folks!