I was friends with a couple of Chris Woodwards who grew up. I’m sure you knew the type. We would play Stratego, and I would catch the flag, and they would say “Oh, the ‘2’ piece can not catch the flag.” And I would ask to see the rulebook, and the rulebook would easily be missing in its 30-year-old copy of Stratego.
It was not limited to Stratego. We would play Tetherball, and they would inform me that I could not hit the ball twice in a row. We would be up against opposing teams for Capture the Flag, and I would suddenly learn that it was apparently “puppy guarding” if you tagged someone twice at a time. I would do it anyway, and she would cry, and the teacher would side with the crying child. In the end, we just stopped playing.
I’m here to tell you that all this was actually good. History should not be judged too harshly by my old friend. Was his regulation extremely degrading? Yes. Did it lead to the breakup of one of my first friendships? Absolutely. Will he be a big crying cry? Again, absolutely. Back then, however, we were six years old. I’m sure I did stupid things too. Six-year-olds do stupid things all the time.
You know who’s not six? And who is actually forty years old? Chris Woodward. If you missed out on Woodward’s tantrum six days ago, it’s long and short that Fernando Tatís Jr. struck a grand slam against Woodward’s Rangers. Tatís’ Padres led 10-3, and Tatís sat in a 3-0 count, which apparently meant he would stop trying, or something.
The Rangers’ Ian Gibaut immediately threw a pitch at Manny Machado, and Woodward said after the game something to the effect of “there are a lot of unwritten rules in the game being challenged,” and “I did not like it. nice, personally. ”If you want to be honest with Woodward, you can point out that he then said“ just because I do not like it does not mean it is not good. ”If you are less benevolent want to be, you could indicate that the Rangers immediately threw a baseball Manny Machado, an act for which Woodward and Gibaut were both detained.
The reason I hastened all this again: I am typically a skeptic, but I do not think there has been greater evidence for the existence of Karmic justice than the events of the games since the slam of Tatís.
The Padres have found fire. They swept their four-game series with the Rangers, hitting a grand slam every game. They then swept the Astros, hitting one salami more and at least one in each game.
The Rangers have meanwhile played as waste. After hovering over the Padres, they lost two games to the Mariners for today’s game. Since August 17, the day of Tatís’ outburst, her pitching has been the worst in baseball. And dying after his dumpster fire from a team for it all (except the one game for which he was suspended) was Chris Woodward.
There is a reason that entire communities on the Internet are dedicated to legal action, no matter how small and meaningful they may be. It just feels so damn cathartic. We all want people to get what we feel they deserve. We want it so badly, in fact, that there is a whole psychological phenomenon that describes how badly we want it. For the Mariners, on top of the feelings of catharsis, this series against the Rangers has done nothing to bear the brunt of good feelings about the rebuilding process.
Kyle Lewis dived in two games out of three. Evan White had a six-RBI game. Justus Sheffield continued with his streak of games wherever he was very good. Even Justin Dunn had a great outing today, tantalizing the more optimistic among us with the prospect that he might be able to turn things around.
Speaking of which: Dunn was excellent today.
He pumped out the zone from the beginning, stepping up both strikes and instances of soft contact. He was so efficient that he managed to retire the first 11 Rangers he faced while using just 42 pitches. A walk in the fourth and a hit in the fifth ended any pressure Scott Servais might have felt to keep Dunn there for too long, which was just as good. Servais pulled him to six innings and eighty pitches, continuing to demonstrate his priority over the health of his staff.
In those six innings, Dunn picked up six strikeouts and left just one walk and hit. Statcast classified just three balls in the game against him as a “hard hit”, and just one ball with 50% chance or higher than a hit. It’s hard to overstate how good he was today.
The Mariners, for their part, were fast and efficient. All four of her runes came through the dinger, including one by Kyle Lewis. Per betting site, Lewis has a tie set with Luis Robert for Rookie of the Year odds. Here’s some of what he’s doing.
- Kyle Lewis leads the AL in OBP, and is third overall.
- Kyle Lewis is second in the AL in wRC +, and is fifth overall.
- Kyle Lewis leads the AL in offensive added value, per Fangraphs.
The Mariners ended up winning 4-1, and Buy In’s infectious disease seems to be spreading among the fandom. I have probably shopped about ten times in the last nineteen years, but whatever. It’s one disease I’m happy to catch, over and over again.
