Hi! Hello, I have a follow-up statement!
It's now the bottom of the 5th inning with Minnesota ahead 6-1 after just scoring 3 runs in the top half of the inning. I'm sure they're booing en masse as the fans walk up the aisles and out of Safeco Field tonight thanks to the dreadful pitching performance put in by one Horacio Ramirez - in a ballpark he's generally done better than average in.
I'm gonna go ahead and piggyback on a sentiment I brought up before: Is It OK For Fans To Boo Their Own Team?
There are two schools of thought, both seem to be of an Old School nature. There are some people who'll tell you it's NEVER okay to boo your own team under any circumstances (unless, they penitrated the first lady's cornhole against her will or something). And then there are those who feel, they've paid the money for their ticket, and that's a license to do whatever is allowed under the rules of the ballpark. So, dammit, they'll fucking boo you for sucking because it's their right as ticket-buying fans!
Generally, I'm not one to boo; really, I don't even care to boo the other team unless I'm in a particularly cheeky mood. Nevertheless, if I were forced to watch this team day in and day out, watching the same players struggle in roles that single-handedly kill our chances to make any headway in this playoff chase, I'd probably be just bitter enough - even WITH the 16 games over .500 (soon to be 15 games over) - to come prepared with my own slew of rhyming insults for my most hated players.
It's definitely odd, though. For a team this good to have SO MANY people on it who the fans just can't stand! These are players who you NEVER feel confident about, and when they do good it's seemingly by dumb luck or the other team having an off night or because the rest of our team picks them up.
Anyway, here's a short list of the most boo-worthy Seattle Mariners this year:
Richie Sexson
Jeff Weaver
Horacio Ramirez
Adrian Beltre
Jarrod Washburn
Raul Ibanez
Chris Rietsma
John Parrish
Now, really, only the top three are truly deserving, and that's what's most disconcerting: two of those three are starting pitchers. These are guys our General Manager decided at the beginning of the year would be the fourth and fifth best options to start games for us every five days ... and it's conceivable to get the same results from nobodies in Tacoma and have more peace from your fans. If these guys were farm products getting ever-so-important Big League Experience, we'd give them at least a year's worth of slack if they went through growing pains but managed to keep their records combined near .500. But, since one is a guy we traded a popular late-inning, hard-throwing reliever for; and one is a known jackass who's never amounted to Jack Squat his entire career, the fans are restless.
The fans are restless because we don't have TIME for these assholes to "come around". We need to WIN games like these tonight - games where the Yankees get shutout and the Angels get mowed down by Roy Halladay! We need to further our momentum down the stretch - especially against lineups like the Minnesota Twins who - a couple fine hitters aside - are essentially worthless.
I'm disconcerted right now, and if I thought it made any difference, I'd vociferously boo Horacio's fucking ass off for the crap sandwich he served me and all the other fans in Safeco tonight