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2019 Seattle Mariners Thread


MC Fresh Breath

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

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Toronto Blue Jays v Seattle MarinersPhoto by Abbie Parr/Getty Images

Sometime in the next week, the Mariners will be officially eliminated from the playoffs. It’s a procedural note only, as they’ve been hemorrhaging fuel and adrift for months. But tonight it was memorable once again - it’s August with Félix on the mound, and the Mariners’ season will conclude as scheduled in a month. He took the ball, gave Seattle a chance to win, left with a lead, and watched them lose from the best seat in the house.

We’ve spent almost three years talking about what Félix was, lamenting what he is. MLB is obsessed with its past, and it encourages us as fans to embrace a sense of nostalgia, treating even our most dismal memories with the sport as formative experiences, and our highlights as cherished moments of transcendence. Mariners fans are well-versed in our nostalgia - for many it’s all there is to celebrate about the franchise. In the moment we appreciated Félix and his greatness, but for half a decade now we’ve been pointing backwards. Barring something extraordinary, it’s the only direction we’ll have left to point when it comes to Félix soon enough. No matter how easy to understand, it will be a difficult day when our goodbye arrives in just a few short weeks.

We’ll sit and watch and listen, in grandstands and on couches, on the bus to work or riding home, as Félix climbs the hill at Safeco T-Mobile Park the final few times until there’s just three more, then two, and then one final start, and the lights go out. They’ll escort us out, gradually but firmly, until you’re barely close enough to smell the popcorn or see the posters by the Occidental entrance. Nothing will remain but those memories, videos that show only the past and never again a new entry into The King’s hopeful future.

For some, it is a reminder of mortality, and that is daunting enough, but more heart-rending to me than the simple certainty of death is that something we all believed in - that Félix would one day get his chance - never came to fruition. Perhaps you never believed the Mariners would make the playoffs, and that is all well and good. But the idea that across 18 years with the organization, four GMs, nine managers, and multiple faces of ownership groups, not a single chance to play on the biggest stage arrived is something that stings in its improbability.

All we can do now is remember, and hope the next time someone truly remarkable becomes a part of our lives and our fandom, they are able to reach what we inevitably realize we want for them as much as we want it for ourselves.

 

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On Aug. 10, Seattle catcher Omar Narváez set a Major League record he didn't even know existed.

When rookie righty Reggie McClain threw his first pitch in the seventh inning against the Rays, he became the 38th pitcher Narvaez had caught this year, the most of any catcher in history for one team in one season. That's a pitcher group which includes a local legend like Félix Hernández, little-known rookies like R.J. Alaniz and Taylor Guilbeau, well-traveled veterans like Wade LeBlanc and Mike Leake, and even fellow backstop Tom Murphy, who has thrown to Narvaez three times.

Narvaez has since extended the mark to 39, and it will likely be north of 40 by the end of the year once September callups arrive. By comparison, Hall of Famer Yogi Berra caught in parts of 19 big league seasons across three decades and received 98 pitchers, total -- barely twice as many as Narvaez will see this year alone.

"Wow," Narvaez said when informed about the "record."

"That’s kind of impressive, because you see the locker room, and we don’t have the same pitchers we had in Spring Training. But I did not know that.”

It wasn't exactly a mark that had stood the test of time. That first pitch from McClain was a called strike to Mike Zunino, Narvaez's Seattle predecessor, who had previously caught the most catchers in a single-team season, 37 ... in 2018. Before that, the high-water number of 36 was set by Robinson Chirinos in '14 and tied by A.J. Pierzynski in '15. This one turns over a lot.

(The record for most pitchers caught in a season by a catcher who changed teams is a wild 49, held by Bobby Wilson in 2016, when he went from Detroit to Texas to Tampa Bay, breaking Victor Martinez's mark of 48 with the '09 Indians and Red Sox. Wilson is currently with Triple-A Toledo; the Mud Hens did not respond to a request for comment.)

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Man it has been a privilege to watch the King pitch. I remember when Dave Cameron coined him with that nickname on the USSMariner blog. He was electric in a way few guys ever have been on a major league mound. I saw him last season. I had to leave the game when he was up 5-0 at Yankee Stadium. I got home and heard John Sterling's radio call of the Yanks somehow winning. Microcosm of his career with the M's. I saw him again this year in the Bronx. It was utterly sad to see him get shelled. I was watching a broken man out there. It was not fun. 

I also want to say fuck you to the Mariners front office for consistently surrounding him with garbage when he was in his prime. One of the best pitchers of his generation toiled in obscurity because management couldn't put together a team that could win the PCL. 

Look for him to resurface in Houston next year and win 15 games if he doesn't just retire. That guy deserves at least one trip to the post-season after everything he endured.

Edited by UpperWestside
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