So I went to the game today. Great seats provided by a friend about 5 rows behind the end of the first base dugout. I don't have a lot to say about the game other than that the Mariners apparently decided that the all star break started at the end of last night's game.
I had forgotten how generally disinterested the fans are at Safeco as I had not been since last year. The loudest cheer during the game was when the grounds crew danced at the end of the third inning with the Yankees already up 3-0. While I do not want to continually harp on the malady that has been this season, I do want to point out that the Safe is a fantastic place to watch a baseball game. The food is excellent, for ballpark food, with a large variety of Seattle favorites, including Ivars seafood and of course the famous garlic fries. Eating a plate of those fries guarantees that no amount of cologne is going to hide the after effects of that dish for 3 days.
Jason Biggs (American Pie) threw out the first pitch and was at the game with Joel David Moore (Avatar) sitting a few rows in front of us. I wouldn't know either of them if I tripped over them other than noticing that Moore was acting quite eccentric. It is probably a Hollywood thing far beyond my understanding. I had to look both of them up on Wikipedia when I got home just to know who they were.
My brief synopsis of this mess of a game is as follows. The Mariners made two errors in the first leading to two runs, one on Lopez and one on Figgins. Both could have easily been charged to Lopez as he was involved in both plays. The first one could have been charged to Kotchman but apparently it is illegal to charge Kotchman with an error under MLB rule 12.18, section 6.b. He has to provide some value to the team other than hitting meaningless home runs in the bottom of the ninth with his squad down 7 and two out, nobody on, like he did today.
In the next inning, Rowland-Smith (The Hyphen) threw one of his 3 wild pitches allowing a run to score. His other one moved a runner to scoring position who also eventually scored. Saunders had an awful game that included dropping a fly ball in the sun and also flying out to Teixeira on a bunt attempt with no outs and nobody on in the third. Of course, his error, which was scored a double, cost the Mariners a run. To add insult to injury, Guittierez dropped a fly ball in the sun a couple innings later. This is unreal to me and can only be explained by mental lapse. I know we don't get a lot of sun in Seattle but the sky was crisp blue, no clouds.
Fortunately, The Hyphen was pulled after 4 innings, in which the Yankees scored 6 runs, 4 earned. I use the term, "earned" loosely here as dropping fly balls and wild pitching the Yanks around the bases didn't exactly make them "earn" anything. Thames hit a home run to left later in the game that went off the upper deck ESPN billboard. It was one of those home runs where the outfielder didn't move, just turned around and waived at it.
On a bright note, Guittierez made a spectacular catch in LF on a ball scorched to right center. He nabbed it at full speed with about 2-3 feet left before the wall. Final game note; it is a good thing the game was at the Safe today and not at Yankee stadium. The Yanks hit 4 balls that went out to within 5-10 feet left or right of the 385 foot sign in right center field that were caught. They all would have left the yard at the stadium.
Today the Mariners went through the motions and looked like they gave up as soon as the game started. When a team goes out and commits 2 throwing errors on routine plays, has 3 wild pitches and loses 2 fly ball in the outfield in the first 5 innings, that is a sign of a team that is mentally checked out. Maybe during the break they can come back and least look like they are making an effort and minimize the circus of mental errors that were made today. Otherwise, my suggestion is going to be to purge the roster and let the young guys get playing time to prepare for next year.
