Mariners don’t care about your anxiety, win 8-7 thriller

Everyone has that one friend that gorges themselves on inspirational quotes. You know, the ones that post a Rupi Kaur or r.m. drake poem on their Instagram Story every other day? The kind that take the tag off their tea bag and live by the mantra Yogi gave them? The kind that has a friend who will send them a “Dream Until Your Dreams Come True” wall decal when they move because they couldn’t take the one from their previous apartment?

I’m that friend. I’m 100% that friend. I’ve scaled back on the Instagram Stories but I live and die by what my “Quote of the Day” is. I even have this deck of quote cards that I’ll tape my favorites selections to my desk at work.

But my favorite quote that I have among my real life Pinterest board is one came to my mind as soon as the first base ump called Pete Alonso out to end the game and hand the Mariners the 8-7 squeaker of a win:

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Innings 1-3

If you were to look at the first three innings in a Shark Pet Pro vacuum it would appear that this was going to be another one of “those” games where the Ms pulled the short end of the wishbone.

Adam Frazier had a decent AB to start the game where he battled for six pitches, fouling off three before he was called out on a third strike changeup that had him swinging like a silly goose. Tough stuff. Ty France came up next and wasted no time recording the second out of the inning. One pitch, down you go. J.P. Crawford had a Frazier-esque at-bat, grinding out the pitches but ultimately falling short. Seemed like a typical Mariners inning.

Because we can’t have nice things, we also can’t have a 0-0 game for too long, thus is the life of a Mariners fan. Francisco Lindor reminded Mets-dom why he was worth the nutso contract they gave him and sent a Robbie Ray fastball 423 feet for the first run of the game. Thankfully the first inning ended with a second Ray strikeout and the Mariners had a chance to do good baseball things.

But no good would come of this inning. After a Julio Rodriguez single to right, our young shooting star reminded us that he’s still 21 and still learning when he misread a Mike Ford shot to left field and was called out at first after he ran a weeee bit too far to pretend he didn’t do it.

The Mets half of the second inning gave us what I’m sure was thought to be the probable most exciting play of the game for the Mariners. This was the peak, it didn’t look good from here. J.P. Crawford made an absurdly heads up tag on Mark Canha that would not have happened had Mark not kicked his foot up as if he just had his doctor tap his knee (except the opposite way, y’know).

The Mariners decided to add a little razzledazzle to the 3rd inning, just for kicks, when they did a cool baseball thing and got two men on with no outs. Exciting. But, us Mariners fans are so conditioned to expect the worst that this just feels a little meh to us, especially with resident Beef Boy, Cal Raleigh coming to the plate.

I don’t think there’s an Ms fan out there that doesn’t want to see Cal succeed. He works hard, he’s a likeable dude, but he’s just not doing it for us right now. This made his AB all that more exciting when he grounded into a double play and got Toro home to make the game 1-1.

Frazier decided to keep things even more exciting by breaking his 0 for 10 streak with a double cheeseburger, extra onions (don’t judge). It’s a promising situation to have Frazier on base these days, what with France up next and sporting a .467 batting average with RISP, and all. I’m terrible at math, but I’m pretty sure that’s nearly 50/50 odds when he’s in that situation. Except now. Because he got out.

Nothing special happened for the Mets in the 3rd so I’m going to skip to the 4th inning which is when things got good*.

*dramatic as hell

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4th Inning

I gave this whole sucker it’s own section because hot damn this inning is crying for attention.

After Crawford and Winker did some baseball things and got themselves on base, Carlos Carrasco giving up his first walk of his day to Julio. After our young gun trotted his little trot to first base, Mariner legend Mike Ford strolled to the plate and did exactly what we all expected. He hit a liner to right field and drove in J.P. and Jesse like the absolute legend that he is.

Staff writer Jacob loves Abraham Toro with probably all of his heart and more, and for good reason. Toro does things like, oh I don’t know, getting a hit right after Mariners legend Mike Ford and driving in another run to make the game 4-1 Ms.

The Steven Souza Jr. and Cal did what they’re expected to do and they went boop boop and both got out, sending us to the bottom of the 4th.

Guess what.

What?

We can’t have nice things, or nice leads.

A Pete Alonso single to center got the inning going, but it was the subsequent walk to Canha and the first of three Mets triples today by JD Davis that really did us in.

And just like that the Mariners dream of having a comfy lead vanished quicker than I wished my SBD farts would — in that I hoped it would be very fast. But there was plenty of stink already and I prayed to whatever higher deity I could that it would go away, please.

That stink didn’t dissipate quickly, nor would it for awhile. Just when we thought Robbie was about to get out of the inning after getting two back-to-back outs, the IBS returned and Brandon Nimmo hit the second triple+2RBI of the inning and gave the Mets a 5-4 lead.

After that the higher diety I previously mentioned finally showed up and ended the inning with a Starling Marte strikeout. Just like we thought it mercifully would.

Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

Innings 5-8

Now, if you like boring innings followed by chaotic innings followed by boring innings followed by chaotic innings, you might enjoy these four. If you don’t and prefer not to have your emotions go up-and-down at a rapid speed like the Tower of Terror does, this might not be for you. But it’s too bad because we’re already here and you’re already reading this and sucked in.

To start the 5th, the Mariners did their best job of being forgettable, save for Ty France showing us that he’s Ty France and getting a hit. Beyond that, Winker lost his rematch with the RP that he hit a home run off of the night before. So we don’t talk about that.

In better news, apparently Robbie took the time after the last inning to sit in the corner and think about what he had done because he came out and had a boring, yet efficient, 5^th inning. He struck out Lindor, got Alonso to ground into an out, and helped Souza Jr. up his street cred with an inning-ending catch in right field.

Now, chaos (good chaos).

No true inning of ahhhhhhhh can be had without my favorite feature that comes with MLBteevee: Ryan Rowland-Smith talking but viewers can’t hear him. Fellow out-of-market fans will know this well.

Aside from that, Julio proved to us that he can hit home runs, but only against NL East opponents.

JRod sent that puppy into the stands and made Mariners fans everywhere smile with glee with his game-tying shot. What a guy.

Then. The moment none of us saw coming but collectively enjoyed:

Sirens

Fireworks

More sirens

That’s right. Cal, our boy, our sweet boy broke his 0-for-25 streak with a booming shot to center-right. Joy. Pure joy. A lead. A pure lead.

After a 1-2-3 Mets 6th it was looking like a win wasn’t totally out of our grasp, but no one was ready to unclench quite yet, even with the added RBI from Julio in the 7th.

To finish this section, here’s a recap of the bottom of the 7th and entirety of the 8th:

1-2-3

1-2-3

1-2-3

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9th Inning

A stat that can’t be ignored among all of this excitement is the fact that five Mariners had a multi-hit day today. Five, and Julio had four of his own, one coming in the 9th inning. But, it was all for naught as his and Ty’s hit were ignored harder than I was when my ex began to ghost me last September.

Do you like anxiety? I don’t like anxiety. Being a Mariners fan doesn’t really fit into my whole “I don’t like anxiety” thing, but tough titties for me today, especially during the bottom of the 9th.

Three outs. We only needed three outs at this point to secure our first road series win of the year and hand the Mets their first series loss of the year. Three outs. A three run lead.

Sirens

Yelling in the distance

More sirens

I’ll be honest, I basically blacked out this half of the inning.

Here you can see my note taking process:

At this point our 8-5 lead has turned into an 8-6 lead and everything about me being a Mariners fan prepared me for the worst, but imaginable: losing the game in the bottom of the 9th.

Apparently, Drew Steckenrider also might have blacked out because he was pulled following his audacity to allow Brandon Nimmo to hit Mazeika home, making it an 8-7 ball game.

Allegedly (remember, I’m blacked out from anxiety at this point), the Mariners quite nearly lost the game here. Between the time that J.D. Davis got out and Nimmo hit his RBI, the win probability went from 98% Mariners to 54% Mets. Thank G-d I’m blacked out by now.

Again, a Starling Marte strikeout isn’t something we expected at this moment, but ended up welcoming with open arms. Open arms that quickly closed shut when the Mariners decided to intentionally walk Lindor to bring Alonso to the plate with 2 outs and the bases loaded.

If you were to tell me when I woke up from my tiny coma that Diego Castillo threw two balls in the dirt in the final AB of the game and then came back to strike out Alonso, I wouldn’t have believed you. I couldn’t have believed you. That’s not what Mariners do. The Mariners, our Seattle Mariners, aren’t supposed to win games when they’re put in this situation against the NL East-leading New York Mets. Us? No way.

And yet...

The Unimaginable

Alonso strikes out. Mariners win. Five Mariners get multiple hits. Julio gets four hits. Cal hits a home run. Diego Castillo gets us out of a bases loaded, bottom of the 9th inning jam. Mariners become the first team to hand the Mets a series loss this year.

Can someone get me on the line with Mary Oliver? The unimaginable just became imaginable.