What a brutal start to a road trip

A 162 game season certainly has a roller coaster feel to it, especially for a fan base as starved for a winner as Seattle is. A 2-6 to start, a nice 7-1 stretch, then 3 consecutive heartbreakers late. Ugh.


So, Aardsma blew a save. I think he is allowed. He had converted 16 in a row before Saturday night in Chicago. No doubt some of you reading this remember Bobby Ayala. Some have been trying to forget, I know (sorry about bringing him back into your consciousness. Really, I’m sorry, but if I have to think about him, so do you). For those of you fortunate enough not to remember, Ayala did some serious, long term damage to the psyche of M’s fans. Utterly frustrating and unreliable, he was good for a spike in antacid sales every time he went out there. Probably cost someone a TV at some point. Anyhow, I bring him up just to tell a story about going to the Oakland Coliseum to watch the M’s play the Oakland. There is a communications company called Avaya, which, out of the corner of your eye looks waaaay too much like Ayala……and that name is all over the place. Bobby scarred me so deeply that it took many, many trips to that stadium for me to stop jumping every time I saw one of those stupid signs. I guess my point is, be glad we have Aardsma, not some crappy closer with a name that sounds like a phone company.

So, back to my point about too many runners left on base….

Three games tied in the late going, three times the M’s lose. As I started to look at the numbers (instead of just going off my assumption/gut feelings which I tend to do sometimes, a good way to look like an idiot) something interesting came to light. The Mariners left 31 runners on base in the series with the White Sox. That seems to be too many (especially since they were swept) but the White Sox left 38. The difference being, the Sox were hitting bombs when it counted. They can get away with that. They are built that way, Seattle is not. There are a million ways to win or lose baseball games, I don’t want to dwell on this on too much, but it just did such a good job of helping illustrate my point from the other day that I thought it warranted a little attention.

Lets hope the M’s can get healthy in KC, and keep the roller coaster going.