Lost in all the hubbub of the NBA draft and Richie Sexson running from baseball authorities is the fact that there's a new Hot Team in Baseball right now. This team, over the last three days, just sweeped arguably the best team in baseball.
That's right! Kansas City Royals Rule and Anaheim Drools!
How about THAT! Mariners sweep Boston and Anaheim gets rocked by the likes of Gil Meche and company! 3 games in the standings and just like that the Mariners are 5 back of Anaheim for the AL West and a couple ahead of Oakland.
I don't know what's less likely a scenario, though. The Mariners start Jeff Weaver, Ryan Feierabend, and Felix gives up 5 earned in 5+ innings and sweep Boston ... or Kansas City bests Anaheim three in a row. Next you'll tell me the Yankees have a losing record and the Detroit Tigers are a new baseball powerhouse. Oh ... nevermind.
Once I saw that Feierabend went 5 innings and that the Mariners plowed through their three best relievers just to get to extra innings - Morrow, Sherrill, and the best closer in baseball J.J. Putz - I had zero hopes of us winning that game last night and getting that series sweep. See, teams like ours - overachieving losers, as I like to call them - will take solace in the fact that they won the first two games and lost the third in a heartbreaking extra-innings nailbiter. A Moral Victory, as they like to say. "We showed them and everyone in baseball that we're For Real!"
That's loser talk. There's no fucking the prom queen anywhere NEAR a 2-game series win, especially when you lose that third game.
But, I've gotta hand it to the Mariners - even though they've blown nearly every single third game after winning the first two of a series this year - they gritted out an 11th inning run last night (albeit, against the HAPLESS Joel Piniero) behind strong pitching from recent trade arrival Jason Davis' two innings.
Credit the team in the 9th, when they faced Boston's best reliever not named Papelbon (Hideki Okajima, he of the less-than-one E.R.A.) and forced him out of the game in the 9th inning after only getting one out. That made Boston put in Papelbon an inning earlier, which meant their entire relief corps was used up after the 10th inning. I knew Piniero was next even without seeing the game on television.
And I knew it was only a matter of time before Joel Piniero pitched like Joel Piniero is capable of pitching. Mediocre-At-Best