Last game of the year? Redux

Well, I got one more, at least.

Last week I speculated that I may have seen my last in-person baseball game of the year, but I lucked out and got to go to tonight's Game 1 of the American League Division Series with Erik. It was the first playoff game in Seattle since 2022, when there was but a single game to attend as the hometown Mariners were eliminated in that first and only home contest of their ’22 postseason. I went to that one with Erik as well. It went 18 innings and the M's lost 1-0.

Tonight wasn't quite so bad; it, too, went extra frames, and once more the loss was by one run, but it was Game 1, so there's at least one more home game (though I won't be attending). Still, the similarities were enough that I asked Erik if this was becoming a pattern for us that we should maybe reexamine. We'll have another opportunity to break/continue the trend if the series goes the full five games.

(An aside: Last night/this morning I had a funny/frustrating dream in which, while preparing to go to this game, I learned that baseball commissioner Rob Manfred had at the last minute declared that the game should not be played at the Mariners' regular home field, but in the Kingdome, which in this dream was still standing though unused for years. This decision was met with unanimous outrage by all, but Manfred insisted because he could sell more tickets in the Kingdome—it had a seating capacity of 59,000 while the current park's capacity is 48,000. Upon entering the Kingdome, which was shabby and smelled of years of disuse, I discovered my regular row 9 seat had been adjusted to row 18 and screamed, Admiral Kirk-style, "MAAAANNNFREEEEEEEEEEEDDDD!!!!!!!!" OK, back to the post.)

I went very early, not knowing what to expect in terms of traffic, crowd, lines to get in, etc. I took the train, which was good for getting down there, a little bit of a nuisance getting back; crowds meant I had to wait for the third train to show up, so the duration of the return was at least twice that of the trip down (and after half an hour or so I really had to pee—it was an exercise in stamina, but no accidents.) But easy and cheaper than parking—even if I scored a meter space, since, unlike a regular-season night game, they'd still be active for a couple hours (downtown meter rates are about $5/hour). Learning from experience, I circumnavigated the stadium to enter at the home plate gates instead of the more direct left-field entrance; the past few times I've been to a sellout or near-sellout, the LF lines were 15-20 minutes long. The HP line today moved much faster.

The pregame festivities included some appearances from Mariners Past, including my favorite, Mike Cameron. He and fellow 2001 Mariner Mark McLemore flanked former manager Lou Piniella, now 82, who delivered the ceremonial first pitch. That was kind of fun. Cam is still popular with folks at the ballpark, he was stopped numerous times on the field by people wanting photos; he was trying to make his way to the visiting Detroit dugout to see his son Daz, who is a member of the Detroit Tigers though not on this series' active roster. I could see him gesturing and trying to get Daz's attention and imagined Daz hiding behind a bigger player or something before going, "Stop it, Dad, you're embarrassing meee!!!!" But no, he finally came out for a minute and they had a moment before Cam, Mac, and Lou left the field for the skyboxes.

[EDIT: Since posting this I recalled that though Daz Cameron came up with the Tigers, he is no longer with them. He's in the Brewers' system now. So I guess I've no idea who Cam was trying to find in Detroit's dugout. But the imagined image still amuses me.]

The players line up for the playoff introductions

Once the game got going, it was a pitcher's duel. Detroit got two on a home run by Kerry Carpenter (Erik: "What's with this team and alliteration? Kerry Carpenter, Jahmei Jones, Dillon Dingler..."). Prior to tonight, Carpenter had batted against Seattle starter George Kirby eight times; four of those times he hit homers. I didn't know that. If I had it would have been less surprising when he smacked a fifth to put Detroit ahead. Seattle got one back in the 6th, thanks in part to Tiger manager A.J. Hinch's generous decision to put in reliever Rafael Montero. Predictably (at least to me—really, ask Erik), Montero immediately put runners aboard; he faced three batters, all reached safely and one scored, before Hinch realized the error of his ways and replaced him with Tyler Holton, who induced a double-play grounder and survived a hard lineout to end the scoring threat. Kirby and the M's relief corps were solid, shutting Detroit down rather well outside of Carpenter's bomb, and we went to extras.

Then Seattle manager Dan Wilson maybe thought he owed Hinch a favor in return for the gift of Rafael Montero? Hard to know what was happening in Dan's mind, but he brought in hard-throwing Carlos Vargas to pitch the 11th. All season, any time I saw Vargas come into a game I figured he was going to put at least two baserunners on; didn't always work out that way, but it did always feel like walking a tightrope. He finished the year with a WHIP ((walks + hits) ÷ innings pitched) of 1.35, which was actually down from the 1.6 or so he carried most of the season. That isn't good. Batters hit .273 against him. That isn't good, either. He does strike a lot of guys out, but that's not going to balance out the other stuff. There's a newfangled sabermetric stat called "runs above average" (RAA). Tarik Skubal, maybe the best pitcher in the world right now, has an RAA of 45, meaning he allows 45 fewer runs than the average pitcher. Skubal is a starter, so better comparison might be Andres Muñoz, the Mariners' All-Star closer, who has an RAA of 13. Vargas' RAA is -3. (Montero's is -5, so that's something in Vargas' favor, I guess.) I don't get why he's been in the big leagues all season, let alone on the playoff roster, let alone why he was called on to hold the line in a tie game in extra innings in the ALDS.

Maybe it didn't matter; the M's weren't able to do anything against non-Rafael Montero Tiger pitching tonight, but then neither were the Tigers doing much with non-Vargas Seattle arms. If not for putting in Vargas, maybe this game would have gone 18 innings too. Maybe Dan was just making sure everyone could get home at a decent hour, I don't know.

But, once again, this could be my last game at the ballpark by Elliott Bay until next year. If the M's can rally back and take two of the next three, I'll be back for the decisive Game 5. If not... Well, it was fun while it lasted.

At least, it was when Carlos Vargas wasn't on the mound.