This Team Drives Me Crazy

But I keep tuning in anyway

I still couldn’t understand why Andres Muñoz wasn’t in the game.

The Mariners carried an incredibly fragile 1-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning against the White Sox, and somehow Mariners manager Dan Wilson decided this was the moment to continue the increasingly maddening Bryce Miller/Luis Castillo piggyback experiment. Castillo, who has been a starter through his entire career, took to the mound in this one-run game while Muñoz, one of the best closers in baseball despite his uneven start to the season, sat in the bullpen for reasons beyond explanation.

The decision made absolutely no sense to me. It didn’t make sense to anyone else I knew who was tuning in. And judging by the looks on the Mariners faces as they flashed on the TV screen, it didn’t appear to make sense to them either.

I pleaded with Wilson through the television as if he could suddenly hear me yelling at him from my living room. This situation was gut-wrenchingly familiar. Another night where the offense barely scraped together anything at all, a first-inning single from Julio Rodriguez standing as our only hit of the night. Another in a series of games that have defined the Mariners early season woes and the headaches they keep creating for fans. Game after game, where sloppy defense, non-existent bats, or single managerial mistakes could bring any potential momentum to a grinding halt.

True to that script, everything immediately fell apart in the top of the ninth.

Photo by Zoshua Colah on Unsplash

A few hits. Castillo, already beginning to look a bit shaky in the eighth, unraveling. And only then did Wilson make the decision that every fan sitting on their couch had made ten minutes earlier, bringing Andres Muñoz into an inning with traffic. An inning he undoubtedly should have started. A few White Sox hits score two runs. The Mariners are incapable of answering in the bottom of the ninth. Another gut-wrenching Mariners loss.

That’s what the first two months of this season have felt like. Agonizing at times. Outright absurd in others.

One-third of the way through the year, and a team with World Series aspirations still hasn’t managed to climb over .500. Night after night, I flip on the game, feel temporary flashes of hope in the early innings, and then slowly feel my agitation level rising as the game moves deeper into the night. My volume usually rises with it, often directed toward Dan Wilson, who continues to ignore all of my suggestions from the couch.

Every now and then my partner looks over and asks the reasonable question:

“Is this really good for you?”

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure.

This is exactly the moment where sports stand alone. With most any frustrating experience in life, we naturally push whatever it is that is bothersome away. If food tastes bad, you stop eating it. If a television show is boring, you turn it off. If a book doesn’t grab you, it ends up back on the shelf unfinished.

And yet somehow, sports work differently.

There are numerous nights where I genuinely do not enjoy watching the Mariners play baseball. And despite this fact, I continue reorganizing parts of my life around making sure I can check in on the game.

If I’m out somewhere, I check the score constantly. I try to do so subtly beneath the dinner table. Though I’m aware that these moments are hardly subtle. A friend texts something frustrated about the bullpen or the offense or Wilson, and suddenly I’m mentally back in the game even if I’m nowhere near a television. Sometimes I catch myself drifting out of conversations because the game is in the seventh inning and the Mariners suddenly have runners on second and third with one out. My entire emotional energy and focus shift to the ballpark, regardless of where I might be or what I might be doing.

That’s the unique rhythm of baseball season, a rhythm that stands alone among sports. No matter how irritating the previous game might have been, another one quietly arrives around 7:00 the next evening. Dinner gets cleaned up. Everyone seems to settle into their evening routine. The house shifts into nighttime. And baseball is suddenly there again.

Another game. Another chance. Another opportunity to get irrationally upset about a hanging slider in the sixth inning or the choice to go to this or that relief pitcher.

Maybe that’s part of what’s comforting about baseball. The season just keeps going regardless of what mood we are in or what circumstances seem to be consuming our daily routines. Good day or bad day, the next chapter is waiting that night.

As I’m writing this, the Mariners have suddenly won two straight against the division-leading Athletics. The math has already started working itself around in my head again. If they can put together the winning streak we’ve all been waiting for, Saturday night could be the night they finally move over .500 for the first time all season.

This past weekend, driving home from my son’s baseball tournament, the miserable crawl of holiday traffic over Snoqualmie Pass suddenly felt lighter as the Mariners radio broadcast filled the car. Home runs by Luke Raley and Dominic Canzone. And another two, this time from Randy Arozarena and JP Crawford. One good offensive night and suddenly all those miserable innings from the previous week started fading into the background again.

That’s the part that drives you crazy.

No matter how many frustrating losses pile up, something as small as one good game can suddenly reconnect you emotionally to the whole thing all over again. Last September, after an abysmal series in Tampa, I told my son I was convinced the season was over. Six weeks later we were sitting at Game 5 of the ALCS when Eugenio Suárez launched a grand slam that briefly made it feel like the impossible might actually happen.

Of course, it didn’t.

It truly can drive you mad.

This Wednesday, they play a noon game, and I already know I’ll probably have it quietly sitting on mute somewhere during meetings with clients. Thursday, they’re off, which somehow will only increase the anticipation for the weekend series back in Seattle.

And then Saturday night I’ll be there again.

Same seats. Same complaints about people standing up in the middle of at-bats. Same running commentary toward Dan Wilson that he’ll continue refusing to acknowledge. My partner patiently listening to me explain bullpen decisions she absolutely did not ask to hear explained.

And I’m quietly hoping this will be the weekend so many of us have been waiting for, where they start turning it around for good. Or maybe they’ll drive me completely insane again.

Either way, when it’s time for the first pitch, I already know I’ll be tuning in.