Riffing Off DaddyO
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Do you think when the 22-year old Steve Martin sat down and logged all those painful hours, learning how to play crack banjo, that he set out planning to use the skill as ... a self-parody? Now you know how Dr. D feels about his writing skills.
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DaddyO speaks. Dr. D annotates after, so as not to spoil the fine bouquet.
Hey, do they use the term "postmortem" in fields other than chess? There's a rule of polite society over the board, that after the game you go to the skittles room to discuss and analyze - win, lose, or draw. It's easily my least-favorite rule of etiquette, any sport, because you have to sit there until your enemy is satisfied, even if it becomes insufferable. And of course by "if" we don't mean "if." If you've never had the class wonk follow you around the campus all day explaining your mistakes, you are just missing the finer points of life.
Point being, if you don't think Dr. D can handle light stuff like a dissection of an M's failure (or Sherm's anti-Trump taunting), think aGAIN bozo. Bring it ON.
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[DaddyO] The Seattle Mariners are and have been Texas Toast since:
1. Ariel Miranda turned opposing hitters into a collective Dave Kingman or Gorman Thomas (take your pick).
2. Felix bit the dust so hard that his teeth turned brown.
3. James Paxton proved (again) to be peanut brittle. All right, all right, I'll add the obligatory proviso that he's no more likely to be injured next year than any other pitcher. Remind me of that when he gets injured next year.
4. The league adjusted to Haniger and Gamel, and both hit the inevitable rookie wall. Still some hope there, though.
5. Jean Segura turned into a completely different hitter than earlier in the season.
6. Jerry DiPoto hired Scott Servais (sorry, Scott, but there it is).
7. Jerry DiPoto decided to embark on a mission to churn more players through his roster than salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
8. The rotation devolved into HWMNBN and various imitations and iterations of others WMNBN.
9. Dan Altavilla became Dan Pancho Villa.
10. Running the bases the Mariners continued to look more like Little Leaguers than even bush leaguers.
11. Etc., etc., etc., rinse, wash, repeat.
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1, 2. 8. Yep. Trainer Rick gave blindfolds and cigarettes to our top 4 starting pitchers, backed them up against a concrete wall, and opened fire with a minigun. When the smoke cleared, Jerry Dipoto had the same excuse that Dr. D's roto teams eternally use.
Our #6 pitcher became our #1 and learned a little too late that it is FASTBALL HIGH, CHANGEUP LOW. When he does that he evolves into a 6-walk no-hit pitcher. Kid's still young.
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3. Epic finish. :- ) I'll confess that I'm subject to the same operant conditioning as anyone else. "What's going to go wrong NEXT?" And there isn't any arguing your way out of some things; the moment you're in the debate, such as a debate over "Dreaming," you've lost. Even when you win an argument against "Dreaming" you lose, and huge.
But we will ask this. Some other pitcher you know of, who always got hurt someplace other than his arm, and woulda been great except he couldn't stop spraining ankles and pulling pec muscles?
See, can't stop myself.
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4. Yep. Haniger and Gamel's results both fell way off. It FEELS the same to me as it does to you, which was why Mojo's confidence was nice to hear. With Ben Gamel: nobody here kidded themselves that he was a .320 hitter, and he's still developing. Still comfortable with my "Seth Smith's little brother" idea. Haniger: catastrophic injuries. Still a Best Bet, and with gusto.
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9. We had 'em right up until Dan Altavilla turned into a pumpkin. :- ) HEH Another laugh line, though DaddyO.
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6. Scott Servais - Would like to hear other opinions here. How many pitchers have the M's gone through - did we hear literally forty? Could be that gets a certified pass. Or could be that Denizens assign Servais most of the blame for the 2017 Mariners never generating momentum, never building on a 5-of-6 streak by laying down another 7-of-11 on top of it.
Thanks for playin' DaddyO m'friend.
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RANDOM VALUE ADD
Bob Dutton writes about the M's plans for their rotation ... wait, you were already briefed about those, two SSI cubicles over. But we can finish the afternoon's M's shtick with the warm, fuzzy knowledge that Dipoto and Servais are emptying their sixguns from behind the cantina like Butch and Sundance. Made for a good scene then too.
BABVA,
Dr D