Sarcastic Guy, Vol. 1

In the first of what I'm sure will be a series of about 10 million posts (due to my unfortunate team allegiances) I give you, the last third of the ninth inning of the Mariners-Twins game last night:

Fact #1: It's game 2 of a 162-game season, in the grand scheme of things, it means nothing.
Fact #2: The Mariners are going to lose at least 85-90 games this season
Fact #3: MLB is giving away a week of their Extra Innings package for free this week, meaning I can see M's games I normally would never see.

That all being said...

Congratulations Brandon Morrow. Now I see why you pulled a Papelbon a couple weeks back and decided you wanted to be a reliever instead of a starter. Some said it was on account of your diabetes, and how managing your blood sugar was much harder as a starter. Some blame the previous regime for putting you in the bullpen in the first place and leaving you there for the better part of 2 years. But now we know the real reason: so that when you pulled an Ankiel and decided to stop throwing strikes it could be at the most visible and most damaging moment.

For those of you who missed it, here is how Morrow's 9th inning went, staked to a 5-3 lead:
Strikeout
Fly out to center
8-pitch walk (the 1st 3 pitches were balls)
4-pitch walk
Killed hot dog vendor with errant pitch
7-pitch walk
39-year old walking carcass of a useful pitcher replaces Morrow
Infield single
Walkoff single

Okay, so one of those things didn't actually happen, but the rest did. And yes, this wasn't entirely unexpected, as Morrow's walked 6 batters for every 9 innings he's pitched, but with a 2-run lead, underhand the stupid ball over the plate. Usually doing the other team's work for them is reserved for people who are actually paid by that other team.

And Erik Bedard, aka, Mr. 5 Innings, thank you for your 5 innings of work last night. It's nice to get consistency from at least one source on this squad, even if that consistency is a supposed ace pitcher obtained by gutting the farm system last year pitching 55% of the game every 5 days. In case you haven't noticed, top pitchers usually push for 7+ innings of work. In fact, your teammate threw 8 innings just the night before. The Mariners can get 5 innings of 3-run ball from Carlos Silva probably about 50% of the time, and Carlos Silva eats 1/3 of the baseballs used in his games. Also in case you haven't noticed, you're in your contract year, you might want to convince people you're not a candybone so you can make some money.

Fact #4: This is why I don't spring for any of the MLB game packages.