Saturday's loss against the Minnesota Twins minted this year's version of the Seattle Mariners as one of the worst teams in franchise history. Sporting a 6-22 record for July 2010, the MMX Mariners now share the worst-month record with the inaugural-season MCMLXXVII ball club. In August, the 1977 club went 6-22.
What have Seattle Mariners fan done to deserve such a fate? Management realized in June that was too late to salvage this season. So they traded away ace Cliff Lee for Justin Smoak, a 23 year-old first baseman who wasn't batting his weight (220 pounds) before he was sent down to Tacoma. Maybe Smoak might emerge as the next Albert Pujols, but right now the young prospect is keeping residence in Pierce County.
Then the proverbial wheels fell off the cart when Ryan Rowland-Smith, the popular and likable Australian southpaw, surrendered 11 earned runs and 11 hits in five innings in last week's Chicago beat down. The team later placed Rowland-Smith on the 15-day disabled list because of low-back strain, which probably explained why the southpaw tanked in MMX. We love the guy's retro-style glasses and his ability to bounce back from injury last year. But his 1-10 record and 6.96 ERA more befitted the Mariners team during the Jimmy Carter Administration.
So, it's August and the organization that doled out $83 million on player salaries is 22½ games behind the Texas Rangers in the American League Worst. We don't oppose spending money to win a championship -- you gotta pay to play. This isn't 1953, thank God.
Now, some of our worldwide readers are undoubtedly wondering why a blog about dog parks devotes an undue amount of time and energy on baseball. The way we see it, there's plenty of time and opportunity to pontificate about off-leash dog parks. However, one suspects that the label (tagline) "Wak the f***" will soon become passé.
No comments:
Post a Comment