Most annoying game of the year ends in 5-3 loss to Rangers

If Kate’s edict as Managing Editor is to write the recap that the game deserves, then this recap should be written in Steve Urkel’s voice. If you watched the game, you know that any time the Mariners were at the plate, a chorus of children were yelling “Hey, batter, batter, batter” without pause. It was a metaphor for the whole game, which was one of the most annoying of the season.

We should have known from the beginning, when the Mariners made great contact but were nonetheless retired on seven pitches.

The Mariners did manage to squeak runs across in the second and fifth, on RBI singles from—who else—Sam Haggerty and Mitch Haniger, as well as scoring a third run in the sixth when Corey Seager rushed his throw to try to beat Julio, but threw it away, allowing J.P. to score. J.P. was on base there for his third time today, hitting the ball hard all three times, and ultimately going 2 for 4 with a double on the day. In the Kimmy Gibbler of baseball games, that’s enough to get him today’s Sun Hat Award.

The rest of the Mariners offense was characterized by wasted opportunites, failing to capitalize on the five walks Martín Pérez gave up. The Jar Jar Binks of pitchers was on brand today in that he took a zillion hours between pitches. At one point, he took more than 15 minutes to throw 23 pitches. They put up a little graphic with a ticking clock on the screen and everything. He was off brand in that he was wild, but who cares—with the home plate umpire calling José Altuve’s strike zone all day, nobody had any way of knowing what was in the zone anyway.

The Rangers scored their runs in equally obnoxious form today. I wanted to do a deep dive on Logan Gilbert’s second-half swoon, but since a recap of a game like this won’t get much traffic, we’ll save that for a proper article. Long story short, his breakers were on point today, capturing six whiffs and five called strikes on the 32 sliders and knuckle curves he threw.

But LoGi Bear’s fastball only had two modes today: meatball and sloppy joe.

Even still, the Rangers had to scrape together their five runs, including one on a wild pitch and two in a burtal sequence from Matt Brash and Erik Swanson that included a ball just out of Sam Haggerty’s reach that ultimately put the game out of reach too. Poor Erik Swanson was unable to escape today’s Comic Sans contest, getting three whiffs on six pitches, but one of the other three ended up here.

I don’t mean to be too much of a downer. It’s not like this portends disaster. The Mariners went 3-3 on the week, after all. It’s just too bad these last two games have been as hard to watch as those Kevin Hart commercials they’re always playing on MLB TV after the first half inning. At least tomorrow we get to watch Luis Castillo.