野球を見ます

As mentioned the other day, I've been under the weather for a while. Today was the first day in over a week that I've felt relatively normal, that after losing most of yesterday to sleep. I mean, I know I'm wont to stay up late and sleep late, but going to bed at 1:00am and sleeping until 5:00pm is a bit much even for me. I guess I needed it, though "sleep-deprived" is not something I'd ever claim to be these days. It's likely that I set my fight against this whatever virus back a ways by trying to work three games Monday night.

Anyway, the upshot of that for these purposes is that I've spent even more time than usual watching TV. Handmaid's Tale is back, Black Mirror did a follow-up to their great USS Callister episode, and I'm going to do a whole post on Daredevil: Born Again at some point. But mostly it's been more Japanese shows and, of course, baseball. (Hence the title above.)

Before getting to my early-season take on Your Seattle Mariners, a few random observations from around MLB:

• Jon Miller is the best. When you're feeling listless and doped up on NyQuil and just want to escape into a ballfield, I recommend tuning into a San Francisco Giants game. Giants play-by-play man Miller makes even the dullest game interesting and enjoyable. I had the Giants-Yankees game on the other day when it was pouring rain at Yankee Stadium and the Giants were winning handily, but Miller gave us drama by creating tension around the rain and whether the game would get enough innings to be official before the umpires stopped play. Doesn't really matter what the circumstance, Jon Miller is the best in the business in the post-Vin Scully broadcaster world.
• When watching games I like to sample the various teams' broadcasters, but now that many of the teams that used to be on the now-defunct Diamond Sports Group cable stations are on the now-rebranded FanDuel networks, it isn't worth it. I'd like to check out the Cincinnati Reds' announcers, but when the on-screen graphics are inundating us with gambling odds and prompts to throw away your money on bets I'll take any other option, even if it's Joe Buck and drunk Harry Caray.
• How have the Dodgers lost six games? They're on a pace to end the year with a record of 113-49, a whole three wins shy of the big-league record for victories in a season. I mean, I thought they were supposed to be good. (That was sarcasm, for those who missed it.)
• How have the White Sox won four games? Yeah, sure, they're still on a pace to lose more games than they did in their record-breaking 2024 campaign, but come on, the Rockies are outdoing you guys for futility! Where's that Chicago pride? (Only some sarcasm there.)
• Those same Colorado Rockies have a run differential of -51, and they've only played six games so far at altitude. The White Sox are really going to have to work hard to repeat as worst of the worst.

OK, the M's. At this moment, the Mariners are 10-9 after taking two of three in Cincinnati (and doing it in very entertaining fashion, at that). They may have started out in the first week looking like the 2023-early 2024 version of the Mariners, but maybe we can chalk that up to rust in the opening week. March is too early to start the season anyway, right?

It's still super early and no definitive conclusions can be reached yet, but new manager Dan Wilson has changed the character of this team and I am here for it, y'all. This bunch still clouts homers, yes, but the home runs are coming incidentally—I'm not seeing anyone step into the box looking to hit one out, I'm not seeing the Joaquin Andujar school of hitting ("swing hard in case you hit it") from them anymore. I see guys going with the pitch, using the opposite field, taking their walks, making productive outs. It's so refreshing after years and years of Scott Servais-led lineups going for optimal "launch angles" and crap like that.

I'm also seeing small ball when it makes sense. The M's have more sacrifice bunts three weeks into the season than I'd bet they had in an entire Scott Servais year (pause while I check that on baseball-reference ... almost: in 2023 the M's had four successful sac bunts, the same number they have so far in 2025). And my favorite thing, Dan Wilson has a running game.

The Seattle Mariners are second only to the Chicago Cubs in stolen bases thus far this year, and that's because the Cubs have played three more games. By steals per game, the M's lead the big leagues! This time last year, only two Mariners, Dylan Moore and Julio Rodríguez, had any stolen bases. This year almost everyone has one, even the catchers have four between them. The M's are on pace to steal 264 bags as a team for the year. They're a long way from being my 1985 Cardinals (that team had 314, with three guys combining for 200 bags all by themselves), but by modern standards this is awesome.

The ’25 Mariners are fun, even when they lose, because they're never out of it. The only game they've played so far that was a snoozer happens to be the only one I've been to in person, game two of the season, which they dropped 7-0. Otherwise, it's been exciting. The starting pitchers continue to be terrific, Luis M. Castillo's bad inning the other day notwithstanding, and Dan's making things happen at bat. It's only the bullpen that seems shaky: The middle relievers have been pretty sad, save for Principal Snider and maybe Gabe Speier. We've already had increasing traffic on the Tacoma Shuttle and there figures to be a lot more as more relievers get tried out. That worries me more than the low batting averages do; the averages will tick up, particularly for Julio, Luke Raley, and Randy Arozarena. Arozarena especially looks like a new man in the early season, that .212 average is not telling the story.

It's a good year for the M's to be fun. We need something to balance out the nightmare of the rest of the news.