The Mariners: the third and final act

I haven't blogged much about baseball this year, but there were a few memorable ones (to me). The season has basically been over since late August, but the knife has really been put into the vampire's heart this September, and no one will remember this season as anything but disappointing. So, to save face, and explain three act structure not only in baseball, but literature and life, I'm going to write this down.

Act 1: The Mariner's had a terrible opening act, so bad in fact it was all I could do not to write them off in mid April. The first death blow was when they lost a game to the Angels with a 7 run lead going into the 9th inning, and were nearly no hit at home on a night not far from this. There were some encouraging signs in the first act, some young outfielders or utility men who had some life in them, but really it was a bust. I wanted to write a blog about this but I wasn't so into blogging this year and furthermore the first act had just begun but some movies are so bad you know they are over in the first few minuts and this was one of them.

In late May, I finally got out my poison pen and wrote the season off in a blog somewhere in this never ending back log of writing that may or may not be read one day depending on how significant or not I become as a writer, but it's there. I thought the Mariners were done in late May, or the end of the first act of the neverending baseball season that tries the patience of prognosticators and pundits. As a side note, baseball is probably the only major sport in America where the announcers can suspend disbelief well into September for a medoicre team, but it didn't used to be this way, and that brings up the wild card. Now all it takes is a .500 record to stay in contention and this makes predicting the postseason hard given that there are 162 games and anything can happen.

Act 2: Some good things happened to the M's in June, the beginning of the second act, and this was when I wrote what I now consider an unfortunate blog post that thankfully got only 30 views or so, but I'll explain my thinking one more time. By June, the beginning of the second act and the "conflict" of the season (the first act is the conceit) the Mariners started turning things around. I know that most teams have a little bit of a winning streak somewhere amidst those 162 games, or a moment when it looks as though they can turn things around, but this one for the M's felt real, and I'm not the only one thought so. In fact, the reality was so thick that what we all saw in June is basically the framework for what the fans and prognosticators are hoping for next season.

For the first time in many a moon cycle, the Mariners finally had a solid line up that could hit. They had an outfield for the first time in a long time that felt like more than some utility players filling in a position, not to mention a really good short stop in Juan Segura. They also had a good catcher, finally, when Mike Zunino seemed to turn things around after a promising but rocky two seasons, and it wasn't hard to imagine that with a little pitching this team could go far. They really had confidence and made the first act, or the conceit seem far behind them. So, what happened?

Well, injuries plauged the Mariners all season so in some ways they were really brought down before the season even began when Drew Smyley (?) one of their starting five went down for the season before he threw one pitch. But that left James Paxton and King Felix, but alas they went down too in the first act, and the Mariners were threadbare. But... they came back for the second act and it was my hope along with everyone's in the organization that Paxton and Felix would stay healthy for the rest of the season and perform well. Paxton superseded expectations at this point in the season and had a really strong month or two where he seemed to be living up to his potential in spades, but Felix.... well, he's beginning the decline of his career, and he wasn't as consistent as I was hoping, but he wasn't expected to be great only good. Or rather good most of the time and great when they needed him.

I didn't follow baseball as strongly as I do most seasons but by late August Paxton and Felix were out of the starting rotation again and this put a kibosh on the season. The night James Paxton went out a second time against the Angels was a death knell.

Act 3 (the resolution) - Like a bad movie or a book most of the fans wrote this one off by September including me and that's really saying something given the nature of the wild card. Sure, the announcers would say how the M's were only 3 out of the second wild card spot, but didn't mention that so were five other clubs, and the whole month felt like a failure to any educated fan. The conceit, the pitching staff beleaguered by injuries, proved the downfall, and the M's weren't making up for games they lost in April. They were out by the second act, unable to get through the heart of the season intact, like a soldier dead on the battlefield.