With Pennant On The Line, Mariners Playing Like Dogs
Never mind who let the dogs out. Better to ask: Just who plans on cleaning up after these dogs?
Such a mess. And the smell. Anyone know where they keep the SoDo ScooPer?
The annoying doggie anthem the Seattle Mariners have adopted off the radio this baseball season suggests, of course, a slobbering, feral pack, untamed and unashamed, in rabid pursuit of its next kill and American League West pennant. The day-to-day results revealed it to be somewhat less savage, but top dogs nonetheless.
Yet who would know it would turn out to be a few incontinent old bassets?
Pennant fever turned pathetic at Safeco Field on Saturday afternoon. In fact, it crossed the line into the sympathetic. There was an unmistakable undercurrent of pity in the Oakland A’s locker room after their latest humiliation of the Mariners - an 8-2 romp set off by seven innings of one-hit pitching by Kevin Appier and Ben Grieve’s grand slam - that was downright coy and transparently forced.
“It’s only a matter of time before that team erupts,” said A’s first baseman Jason Giambi. “I just hope it’s after we leave.”
Uh-huh. If you say so, Jace.
In the other clubhouse, the closest thing you could find to an eruption was manager Lou Piniella shooing the media out of his office.
“They went out and kicked our butts tonight,” he seethed. “But we’re still in first place (in the win column). We’re still going to get the job done. Outside of that, don’t ask me about the ballgame - ask the players.”
Ask them what? If anyone knows the Heimlich?
For 86 consecutive days, the Mariners were in sole possession of first place in the A.L. West. Now, in the space of three days at Safeco, they have misplaced their ability to pitch, hit and occasionally field, along with the three-game lead they held over the A’s.
By this afternoon, they could be checking their hole card in hopes that it’s wild.
“It’s a big swing either way,” said M’s shortstop Alex Rodriguez of today’s 1:35 p.m. series finale. “I’d rather be one up with six to go than one down. Believe it or not, we’re still in a pretty good position if we win.
“At this point, we have nothing to lose.”
Well, yes. They’ve certainly seen to that.
Remember in 1995, when the pennant-drive motto was “Refuse to Lose?”
Welcome to Refuse to Compete. The Mariners have been so uninspired, so lifeless that they can’t even be bothered to lift their duffs off the dugout bench to urge each other on. The A’s, meanwhile, are elbow-to-elbow, draped over the dugout rail, waiting on the next bolt of lightning.
Maybe the Mariners care, but it’s for certain the A’s care more.
This could have something to do with the fact that the lineup the A’s sent out to open this series average 25 years of age; Seattle’s averaged 33. “Youth can either fall apart or run wild,” Giambi said. “We’ve run wild.”
Figuratively speaking, that is. The A’s don’t run. No major league team steals fewer bases, though they do seem quite capable of taking the extra base on rope singles and rip doubles, of alertly getting good jumps and cutting off the gaps.
“Those guys are relentless,” admitted Rodriguez. “I’ve got to give them credit. I made an error and they capitalized on that. It seems like they capitalize on everything.”
And that includes when manager Art Howe pulls the lever and three cherries come up.
On the first night of the series, he benched 37-year-old Randy Velarde - a .302 lifetime hitter against Seattle - in favor of 22-year-old Jose Ortiz, who made the perfect relay throw to blunt Seattle’s first-inning rally and later started Oakland’s winning rally with his first big-league hit. Howe plugged shortstop Miguel Tejada into the cleanup spot for the first time - making it a late lineup change so the youngster wouldn’t have time to think about it - and was rewarded with a home run. On Friday, he gambled and started Omar Olivares, who had been little better than a batting practice pitcher all year; he stops Seattle on two runs.
In the six-run rally that blew up Saturday’s game, he had Jeremy Giambi bunt away with two strikes, and little brother got it down.
The M’s, meanwhile, have wandered far off the karmic trail. Rodriguez is 1 for 12. The Nos. 3-4-5 spots have gone an aggregate 5 for 31, with seven strikeouts and 12 runners left on base - even with Edgar Martinez’s two-run homer on Saturday. “Those three guys probably haven’t gone a series this whole season doing that,” said Grieve. “Without that, it’s going to be tough for them to win.”
Which, of course, speaks to Seattle’s inability to acquire a productive bat - from any side of the plate - at the trading deadline. Think they wouldn’t kill for Juan Gonzalez right now?
Maybe Patrick Ewing can hit the split-finger.
The good news is, Howe must send out another stiff today in Ariel Prieto. Alas, Piniella gets to send out John Halama, which was probably why he was saying, “We know we have to win this one,” before Saturday’s game.
Afterward, he wasn’t saying much more.
“But I am going to say this,” he bellowed. “We’ve been doing it with mirrors all year. For 152 games. And we’re going to find a way to do it with mirrors for seven more.”
That’s certainly well-timed spin. For 152 games, we heard mostly about how the M’s had been doing it with solid baseball - pitching, defense, timely hitting. Now we’re being told it was all a house of mirrors. Piniella is not necessarily wrong - the M’s don’t have much power pitching in the rotation, and no bats of consequence beyond Rodrigeuz, Martinez and a somewhat underachieving John Olerud.
Still, the mirror might not have shattered Saturday had mel-Lou himself not tried to squeeze two innings out of Arthur Rhodes, who generally only pitches to two batters.
Well, we have been here before. For all the magic of ‘95, it is often forgotten that the M’s had a threegame lead with five to play and lost back-to-back games in Texas to force a playoff.
Simple math tells us we truly have a pennant race now. But what the dogs have left behind the last three days suggests something else altogether.