Sailors go to Anaheim (not Los Angeles), beat Angels (not Mike Trout)

As we all know, baseball has a collection of idiosyncrasies that make the game especially charming in its strange and charming way. I’ve always loved the fact that coaches have to wear the same uniform as the players, or that a home run is certainly in some stadiums just a quail for the warning track in others. But another one of my favorite random baseball things came up in the Mariners game tonight: a starting pitcher who has an advantage even before throwing a single pitch. Like a quarterback taking the field with a 7-0 lead after his defense harbors a loose return, a pitcher who has the luxury of an early lead works wonders for his game plan, psyche, and overall behavior. .

That luxury was granted to Marco Gonzales when José Marmolejos crashed this atrocious Dylan Bundy field against the back walls of Angel Stadium.

It was not only the first home run of Marmolejos’ career, it was also something that [clears throat, buys trophy, pours eight beers into it, drinks it like I’ve just won some sort of self-serving championship] HE PREACHED ONE HOUR BEFORE THE GAME. This is the luxury of being incredibly smart. The townspeople sang my compliments far and wide, as our preferred baseball team took a 3-0 lead during the first 0.05% of the game.

Seattle had another big treat on their side tonight as Angels superstar Mike Trout missed the game to welcome a newborn alevin. A luxury that Marco Gonzales does not have, unfortunately, is that it can be lost in the middle of the plate. Although their curve-cutter ball change repertoire can be extremely effective in cornering, none of those pitches plays very well if they end up in the fat end of the strike zone. As he passed the first four innings, Gonzales was tossing dime to drummer Joe Hudson. When he played over the heart of the plate, he typically did it early in the count when hitters are prone to take, as he did in this three-shot destruction of Shohei Ohtani.

When Hudson settled in a spot for a full at-bat, Gonzales also lived up to the challenge. This constant diet of inside hitters for Justin Upton, while surely assisted by the umpire, is a pristine example of how Gonzales can be a nightmare for right-handed hitters.

Unfortunately, being a control pitcher with no swing-and-miss stuff means Gonzales relies more on his defense than pitchers who come equipped with a Formula 1 engine. With two outs in the fifth inning, Gonzales induced a spinning shot of someone named Taylor Ward. As the ball spun like a Beyblade toward second base, Shed Long Jr. got into position to make the play, approaching the ball as if it was caught in midair. Instead, the ball seemed to swing left and he evaded his glove, giving the Angels a necessary baserunner and Long Jr. their first mistake of the season. What happened next can only be described with a shrug, a deep sigh, and a resigned “That’s baseball.”

This was Max Stassi, a lifetime reserve receiver with a wRC + of 75 in his career. The absurd homer from the opposite field that was held up just by a fingernail sparked a fantastic reaction from Gonzales.

Stassi’s pole dance turned a completely boring 3-0 game into a slightly less boring 3-2 game. For some reason, the Mariners forgot how to hit after Marmolejos’ first inning shot, and the game picked up the pace of an auction where no one wanted to buy anything. Obviously, the upside-down nature of this season has created many unusual factors, most of which I hope will be removed when they play 162 again, but I don’t hate that a game is in the fifth inning before 8:00. If the Mariners want to bring something from this strange world into the future, it should definitely be the 6:40 start time.

The scoreboard continued reading 3-2 as the sun went down at the Angels’ Cookie Cutter Stadium surrounded by 19 miles of parking. Until, that is, a sudden jolt lit up the Orange County sky like a malfunctioning Juul capsule. The fountain? Shedric Bernard Long Jr., who played the role of Derek Zoolander for Hansel Robles of the Angels.

Robles and the Angels followed this up with the ever-questionable “two straight walks” maneuver, prompting Joe Hudson to advance both runners with a picturesque sacrifice bunt. I’m not kidding at all when I say this will probably be my lasting memory of Joe Hudson, Current Seattle Mariner. JP Crawford cashed in a fortuitous two-RBI blooper, and so the Mariners had some necessary insurance runs. They quickly rushed on three more runs to secure a serial victory against their tomato-colored foes, delayed only by Shohei Ohtani in some way hitting a bass and on a wall shot in left center field. Tomatoes, by the way, have famous Ohtani and Trout, added Anthony Rendon and Joe Maddon, but they don’t have a single good pitcher on the list yet. That seems like a bad idea. However, I am sure they will fix things. Not that they had extra time to prepare for this season and evaluate their bullpen.

When the dust cleared in the Disney Mascot Cemetery, the Mariners had taken two out of three from the team which I enjoy seeing them hit more. What a luxury.