Lamest Game Ever
Last night, I was fortunate to have excellent seats to watch the hometown Seattle Mariners indulge in the travesty of inter-league play with their ubiquitous and utterly irrelevant "interleague rival," the San Diego Padres. I guess since there's no NL team in Portland, we're stuck playing the Pods. For those few of you who care, the Mariners' season has been a prolonged exercise in frustration. Baffling offseason moves (and non-moves) left the roster bereft of any kind of hitting and bloated with aging stars and worthless roleplayers. The results have no only been predictably bad, but also deadly dull.
Last night was the Mariners' season in microcosm. They fell behind early, 3-0 in the first inning. After that, starting ace Freddy Garcia settled down and threw darts the rest of the evening, completely shutting down the Padres. Unfortunately, the M's were able to muster no offense until a freak 2-run home run in the 7th by hack-artist Scott Spezio. In the bottom of the 9th, the M's put the tying run aboard on a walk, then gave up one of their three remaining outs to advance the pinch-runner to second base. With two outs, creaky 41-year old superstar and hometown favorite Edgar Martinez emerged from the dugout to pinch hit, and connected on a Trevor Hoffman fastball right up the middle.
To say Martinez is not fleet of foot is an understatement: you could time his progress to first base with a sundial. Nevertheless, he miraculously managed to beat out the play - safe at first, with Ichiro Suzuki, the only bona-fide ballplayer on the team, ready to hit next with ytwo out and two on.
At that moment, from our vantage point on the first base line, we noticed the pinch runner - the man who had been put into the game for the sole purpose of running the bases - had rounded third base and put on the brakes about halfway down the line. The Padres noticed too, and their first baseman fired the ball in to the catcher. The Mariner runner - the potential tying run - retreated back to third, where he was thrown out to end the game.
I don't think I've ever seen a stupider play in 30 years of watching baseball. The tying run, thrown out going back to third base! - to end the game, with the team's best hitter on deck. Yet there you have it. Go M's. Can't wait till the Tour de France starts in a couple of weeks.
2:34:46 PM 
|
|
