They did it again!

Last night, busy with other things, I only vaguely followed the Mariners game. They had been behind almost all evening, and were trailing 3 -2 going into the ninth. 

I checked a while later. The final score was M’s 5, A’s 3! 

“They did it again!” I said aloud to no one.  Then I checked the MLB story on the game. 

“They did it again!” said MLB.  

The Mariner are building the most intriguing story line in MLB right now. 

All the teams the Mariners are chasing teams are SUPPOSED to be winning.  The Dodgers have a +204 run differential, the biggest in MLB… if you exclude the EFL, of course. Somehow they only have the second-best record in MLB (again, excluding the EFL),  78 – 47 when they should be 83 – 42. They maybe should be even better than that, because they have the largest talent differential in all of baseball.   

The Yankees are SUPPOSED to win. They have the biggest revenue differential in all of MLB (INCLUDING the EFL).  But their run differential is only +47, which should put them at 68 – 57. Instead they are 73-52 because not only do they have all the money, they have all the luck, too.

Except they DON’T have all the luck.  Here are the plucky Mariners.  They haven’t sniffed the post season since they tied the all-time record in regular season wins in 2001. And they’ve never sniffed the World Series.  The M’s had a  -67 run differential Sunday morning, after getting bombed twice in a row by the Astros. That ranked Seattle 11th in the American League and 23rd in MLB (again omitting the EFL). 

And yet, they are still in the hunt for a wild card spot in the postseason.  After last night’s heroics, they are two games behind the A’s and three games behind Boston for the second wild card,  5.5 games behind the Yankees for the first wild card, and the same distance behind Houston for skipping the wild card altogether. 

The only team in major sports without an appearance in its championship game, with a record 11 games better than it should be by run differential,  and even further ahead of where it should be by talent differential: how can you NOT “root for this stupid team”??  And they keep rewarding your faith.  They may lose two games by a combined score of 27 – 4, but then they win two games with tying home runs in the ninth hit by a guy named Ty.  

What a heartwarming, Cinderalla story.  This Cinderella hasn’t been invited out after the season in twenty years.  They’ve never been invited to the grand World Series gala ball.  They should hardly ever win, but here they are.  They did it again, just last night. 

It’s enough to inspire anyone who is struggling, games and games behind, maybe tempted to give up on the race without the talent or the performance or the resources of “better” teams. But if the  M’s can climb their mountain and hang in the pennant race, then so can anyone…

Wait! What am I saying??   

No, no, no… it’s impossible to catch the teams in front of you.  Don’t read anything before this paragraph.