By definition, 60 percent of teams think that baseball is cruel before the postseason even gets here. Then that number creeps up to 73 percent less than a week later, and it goes up to 87 percent a week after that. When it’s all over, 96.666 percent of baseball teams and their fans know the truth about baseball: It’s a hideous, soul-gargling, demon sport. Only one team will think everything is just super when it’s all over.
Hot dang, I love it so much.
The Mariners and their long-suffering, extremely patient fans might disagree at the moment. The Astros came back. Again. On a late-inning Yordan Alvarez home run. Again.
Here’s a rewind of the sixth day of MLB postseason action, which was reduced to one game thanks to rain in New York.
Houston vs. Seattle: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t — the Yordan Alvarez conundrum
The postseason is easier to understand when you get to blame someone. An umpire, a manager, a player, all of the above. The Mariners lost Game 1 of the ALDS when manager Scott Servais tried to get creative and use a starting pitcher as a closer. That starting pitcher came into the game having allowed five home runs to the last 29 batters he faced in October, and he was brought in to face an anthropomorphic home run. You can point a stubby finger at the TV and understand the causality behind the heartbreaking loss.
That sort of easy explanation doesn’t exist for Game 2. The Mariners did several things right, going all the way back to trading for Luis Castillo because he seemed like the kind of pitcher who, if called upon, could make a very good team look bad in the postseason. It was a smart, inspired and forward-thinking trade. Doing a lot of things right is how the Mariners got here.
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