You gotta score a run.
It’s a simple, painfully obvious principle, but one that I return to frequently while watching this incarnation of the Seattle Mariners. By “this incarnation,” I mean the 2020s team (2021-?) that wins frequently with crafty pitching and low scoring. Rarely do they seem to score first, which means that I often find myself watching a solo homer go over the wall for the opposition (see last night) and saying to myself aloud “well, they were never going to win without scoring a run.”
It’s what the kids these days call cope, a term used to discredit self-reassurance, which itself is a fascinating phenomenon worthy of its own examination. It is perhaps emblematic of the toxicity of contemporary online culture that a practice that helps make life more manageable for people is the subject of abject mockery. Coping strategies are not always healthy (as anyone who’s been to more than two lifetime therapy sessions can confirm), but life without them is a constant unchecked anxiety-scape reminiscent of the ocean: eat or be eaten.
My particular rendition of cope last night began in the top of the 5th where a scoreless Mariners team was being bailed out by a slightly shaky Luis Castillo, who’d scattered a couple uncharacteristic walks in the first and never quite seemed to find his groove despite stranding A’s and keeping them off the board. Lawrence Butler, leadoff man for the newly trying Sacramento A’s, scorched a two-out double over Julio’s head off the center field wall, bringing Brent Rooker to the plate in a tempting situation to walk him (or pitch around him) given his historic productivity against the M’s. That said, he entered the AB 0/6 with 5 K’s in the series and season so far, so it was especially devastating when he parked a 1-1 fastball on the yellow line atop left-center for a 2-run shot.
You gotta score one, yes. But two?
Fans of teams not the Mariners may laugh at this skepticism, but we have earned this the hard way. Our ratio of runs scored to wins is chronically low, which is only sustainably with stellar pitching. Unfortunately, we were turning A’s starter Jeffrey Springs into a stellar pitcher as he threw 6 shutout innings with 9 strikeouts, matching a career-second-best he set… last year in T-Mobile Park against your Seattle Mariners.
As much as yesterday’s contest was fun and seemingly new, today just chomped into old narratives we’re hoping to discard. The Mariners flailed at off-speed stuff like they didn’t know there were pitches other than fastballs. New infield signing Donovan Solano did his best impression of Adam Frazier, no Kolten Wong, no 2024 Jorge Polanco by striking out his first 3 times up, sometimes killing rallies sparked by the improved 2025 versions of Polanco and Mitch Garver. We are reminded that Spring Training is not held in T-Mobile, so hitters get no practice parsing the ball from its notoriously misaligned batter’s eye, which is probably as responsible as anything for our March/April hitting slumps (see also Seattle’s weather). Solano might as well have had chunks of the batter’s eye for sunglasses given the quality of his swings.
We stranded a 2-on no-out start in the 5th when (after a Solano K), Dylan Moore scorched a hit into center (3rd hit of the inning!) and new 3rd-base coach Christopher Negron sent a lumbering Garver about the time JJ Bleday had control of the ball, leading to an embarrassing tag-out at home for the second straight night. It was at this point that I was finding it hard to cope. Ryan Bliss choosing to dart home on his wheels last night was explicable, but sending Garver when you’re about to have bases loaded and 1 out and their excellent starter had given up no hits through 4 before this is a little unforgivable.
The wheels came off in the 7th when Dan Wilson waved an at least off-white flag by bringing in Eduard Bazardo to start the frame and he promptly threw the ball everywhere but the strike zone. I believe in his potential, he reminds me of a reliever Randy Johnson when he first came to the M’s, wild but potentially effective, but right now he’s just wild. He got in a jam that Sauce almost got out of, got squeezed on a couple calls, and then induced what looked like an inning-ending squibber that handcuffed Jorge Polanco racing across the diamond and yielded a heads-up score from second on an infield hit. The difference between 2 and 3 felt monumental, Sauce was visibly frustrated, and the Mariners yielded two more runs in the blink of an eye.
At 5-0, it felt insurmountable, so the Mariners promptly got to face the bullpen (remember Jump the Bullpen?) and immediately put the first two runners on with walks by Randy and Garver. Polanco gutted out a lengthy but ultimately frustrating AB, grounding into a fielder’s choice at second. But Solano came up and no longer had to face Springs, so hope sprung eternal. Goldy waxed about his ability to make contact, so he whiffed on three straight pitches and seemed to kill the rally. Luke Raley pinch hit for Moore with a lefty up in the pen and the lefty came in and promptly turned Raley into Solano with a strike looking and two whiffs of his own. Ballgame. Two innings to go, but ballgame. I almost went to bed.
Doing so would have deprived me of watching the A’s score some more, so y’know, I guess less inoculation for the long season ahead? You’re going to lose some laughers, but it hurts to take one so badly after a great start on Opening Day. And the garbage-time pinch-hit home run by 2024 infield bust Luis Urias was particularly painful, given that he never hit a home run in Seattle last year! Talk about your Kolten Wongs.
Some things remain the same: we’re still bad against lefties. Doubly so lefties with good off-speed stuff. We’re still capable of making journeymen pitchers look like Cy Young candidates on cold nights in Seattle. We still need work on clutch hitting. And it’s one day and super-early, but Solano already looks like he’s joining a Hall of Shame of 2020s infield pickups who utterly collapse in the northwest. Garver playing catcher demonstrated just how lucky we are to have Cal Raleigh in that role most of the time (he wasn’t bad, but he gave up a lot of strikes that Cal would have gotten, some of which were even actual strikes).
Silver linings, for something to salvage:
1. Julio, who had looked lost so far, got a solid base hit the other way for his first of the year in the 8th.
2. Santos looked very strong and healthy in a scoreless 6th before things got out of hand.
3. Surprise Spring Training breakout Miles Mastrobuoni got a pinch hit in the 9th.
That’s about it. Short memory, new start tonight, get it out of your system. Insert your cope cliche here.
Mariners Stats:
Comeback Wins: 1
Wire-to-Wire Losses: 1
Multi-Homer Games: 1-0
No-Homer Games: 0-1
Personal Stats:
Watched on TV: 1-1
