Seattle Mariners Fall Again, Bringing M's Fans Worst Insecurities to the Forefront
If the Seattle Mariners don't make the playoffs this year, most people won't remember it.
Most fans will remember that the San Diego Padres spent a zillion dollars over the last few years and didn't make the playoffs. They'll remember that the New York Mets had both Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander and ended up having to trade both. They certainly are bigger disappointments.
Heck, they'll remember that the Red Sox and Yankees missed the playoffs too, which is also shocking.
Baseball circles will remember all those things before they remember the Mariners, who will largely just skate by forgotten.
But I won't forget it.
The Mariners lost again on Monday night, this time to the Houston Astros. They have lost four straight games and have gone from tied for the third and final wild card spot to 1.5 games out. They are now 4.0 games back in the division. The playoffs are still possible, but they feel largely unattainable with six games to play.
See, I've been a Mariners fan for 30 years. I've seen a lot of years where the M's didn't make the playoffs - in fact they haven't made the playoffs for most of my life. I'm plenty used to watching stress-free October baseball. That's not really news to me.
But this year will be different if the M's don't get in, because it will have brought back all the bad vibes that I hoped would be exercised by the M's getting to the playoffs in 2022.
See, when the Mariners made the playoffs a season ago, I had hoped it was the dawning of a new era of my fandom, one in which I could be confident and happy and enjoy success.
Instead? These last four games have brought back the fan that existed in me for most of the last 30 years. The fan that always anticipates the worst, the fan that can predict bad before bad happens, the fan that just knows that his team will disappoint.
So, if the Mariners don't make the playoffs, most people will forget. The baseball world will go on and write it off as a bad stretch at an inopportune time.
But I won't - I'll just remember it as a return to normal.
A normal I was trying to put in the rearview mirror.
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