Sailors lose 8-2, yes

One of my university courses taught us about uncertainty reduction theory. Basically it says that people have an inherent need to acquire basic information to facilitate a new situation. Once this information is obtained, it becomes much easier to predict future behavior, which is critical to building and maintaining a relationship.

Upon entering the 2020 season, we had an extraordinarily small familiarity with these Mariners and various mountains of uncertainty. The pandemic not only reversed everyone’s life and delayed the season for months, but when we finally got to see the Mariners again, they reminded us how inexperienced this group is. Seattle has the youngest list of all major baseball leagues. Two players in the starting lineup were making their major league debut, which was already a daunting and terrifying test, but they also had to do it against one of the best pitchers of their generation. These young men bravely marched to Houston tonight, uncertainty replacing the juice that normally fills the Minute Maid raid box.

It only took until the second inning for part of that uncertainty to launch into the stratosphere.

A 438-foot, 111-MPH rocket in front of a future Hall of Famer is a great way to reduce the behavioral uncertainty that clouds the start of a new situation. The Mariners and Astros are taking up completely disparate ends of the baseball spectrum this year: Seattle as the frozen team trying to figure out how their pieces fit together, Houston as one of the safest monsters in the league. Seeing Kyle Lewis set aside doubt in the form of a Pujolsian home run is what communication scholars appropriately call the exit stage of uncertainty. It would be difficult to find a better physical manifestation of doubt clearance than a home run that lands in a different area code.

If there was any player we could count on on the road to the big unknown, it was our 10-year veteran at third base. Kyle Seager has seen, done, and experienced almost everything he can on a baseball field. * While a game against the Astros without the traditional sounds of trash percussion was probably jarring at first, Seager seemed to accommodate in his fourth inning. appearance against Verlander.

* Please forgive me for your playoff pranks. I’m very tired

This was Seager’s 199^th Long ball in his career, more than 100 more than the rest of his teammates have combined. The sweet sounds of a Seager bomb were welcome music to our ears at a time when the new wave is in vogue. Of course, the power of nostalgia can only take you so far before reality crushes you like a helpless dumpster against a powerful bat.

Photo by Bob Levey / Getty Images

With each entry, the uncertainty vanished and the logic took over. The Mariners are not a good team. The Astros are. As such, the Astros pulled away when the Mariners kicked the ball, failed to get close to a rally, and pulled the anonymous reliever after anonymous reliever.

Things got out of control in the fifth inning. A possible double play turned into a zero play when Kyle Seager made a wandering shot to second, setting consecutive singles on two more achievable plays that the Mariners failed. José Altuve tied the game on an infield single that, with better decision making, should have led to a play at home plate. Instead, JP Crawford shot first, which, to be fair, almost got Altuve, but did nothing to head for the runner rushing home. The next hitter, Alex Bregman, hit a ball to right field that landed several millimeters to the left of Mallex Smith’s glove, setting up what would be the winning run. In good measure, Houston added five more. I have to get rid of that uncertainty, you see.

At the end of the day, things went as planned for the 2020 Mariners. Marco Gonzales was solid, if not great, Kyle Lewis showed off the tremendous talent we’ve all salivated, and the bullpen was crushed by the wildebeests. Get used to it while still hiding under low expectations.

In addition to the Kyles taking Justin Verlander to the woodshed, there were other micropositives buried in the mud. Seattle made four players debut in the major leagues. Evan White and José Marmolejos were part of the top nine, while relievers Anthony Misiewicz and Yohan Ramírez entered the later half of the game.

Both pitchers even recorded their first strikeouts! Misiewicz dusted Altuve with a nasty shot on the ground, while Ramírez, who throws the caps lock, fanned Martín Maldonado in a thunderbolt in the area. For those looking to embrace a new cult hero in the 2020 Mariners, check out the curly-haired Ramirez and his absolutely unpredictable field locations. The rookie also had Alex Bregman swing to finish the eighth inning, giving him two strikeouts to go with two walks on his first day on the job.

To handle our uncertainty about this club for the rest of the season, academics recommend two courses of action. The first is the proactive reduction of uncertainty. This, in baseball terms, is the act of making predictions about what will happen before interacting with the team. People will often try to predict what else wants listen (in our case, the sounds of victory), based on what they have gained from previous observations (the sounds of being hit by a truck). In this situation, obviously, we must predict losses more frequently than gains. This will protect us from being blinded by things that we should realistically know.

The second move is the retroactive reduction of uncertainty, which can only occur after the fact. This allows us to explain the behavior of the Mariners by interpreting the meaning of their actions. For example, a superior team sprayed them today, which means that the same thing will probably happen when they play with other dominant teams. However, we will persist, as Mariner fans always do. I hope the cold consolation of a Mariner defeat hits you in all the right places, reducing the uncertainty of the pandemic as we strengthen our certainty about one thing.

Even in the terrors of 2020, the Mariners will still be there to do what they always do best.