Yes, we got us a front runner. …but he stands on the brink as we write this.
It’s a week into the postseason, but it only took us a day to wonder just what the hell is going on. The box score of the Yankees-Red Sox wild card game contained exactly zero ex-Mariners on either squad. For a couple of teams that regularly feature former M’s like Varitek while we slobber over bums like Slocumb… wait, we digress.
The next night, the Dodgers-Cards matchup, was a different story, wasn’t it?
Ex-Mariner body builder Tyler O’Neill, at the end of a breakout season where he knocked 34 dongs and became a feared presence at the 3-hole in the resurgent Cards lineup… Well… Tyler went 0 for 4 with men on base. Six of the nine Cardinal baserunners that night came from the #1 and 2 slots in the order, and Tyler, oh Tyler, he left all six on base. He struck out to end the Cards’ ninth inning, with Tommy Edman once again in scoring position…
…and the rest of that story, of course, is what happened in the bottom of the ninth.
2017 Ex-Mariner of the Year early frontrunner Chris Taylor is at it again. Taylor took a mighty stroke to end the game, end the Cardinals’ improbable hot streak, and end O’Neill’s hopes of redemption. A majestic cut, to vault his Dodgers into the division series against the Giants. Here’s what happened:
And here’s what else happened, by the time a couple NLDS games had passed:
Yeah that’s our man. But tonight his Dodgers stand on the edge, facing elimination by the hated Giants. There’s no rule that says a guy has to stay in the postseason to clinch Ex-Mariner of the Year, in fact Taylor got aced out by none other than Munenori Kawasaki in 2017, even after Taylor clubbed a Game One World Series leadoff home run. Matter of fact, let’s take the way-back machine for a second. Does this look familiar?
Elsewhere in ex-Mariner postseason news…
Alert reader Steve From Tacoma noted at the outset that Mike Zunino could well be World Series MVP… but alas, in spite of the former Mariner catcher leading the Devil Rays to a late desperate rally, tying last night’s backbreaker in the 8th inning, down went Zunino, and JT Chargois, and Ji-Man Choi, to the where-did-these-guys-come-from Red Sox.
And you really gotta feel for 41-year-old Nelson Cruz, very likely on his last chance in the postseason, Nelson Cruz who was ALCS MVP with the Rangers in 2011 before batting just .200 in that World Series and losing to the Cards, Nelson Cruz who was still looking for a ring after 17 seasons in the majors. But down went Cruz along with the rest of the Devil Rays.
Meanwhile down south, Atlanta and our old friend Guillermo Heredia have the Brewers on the ropes, the Brewers and Playin’ in the Dirt’s own favorite Large Adult Son Daniel Vogelbach, yeah the big fella’s in the playoffs for the second year in a row and at one point sported a 1.000 OBP in the NLDS – a pinch-hit walk, lifted for a pinch runner – but he and fellow ex-Ms Omar Narvaez and Hunter Strickland are down two games to one in front of the nut job tomahawk choppin’ Braves fans.
And in Chicago this very moment, the ex-Mariner-less White Sox trail 2 games to one behind Kendall Graveman and the garbage-can-thumpin’, never-got-penalized-for-cheating Houston Trashtros.
The pickin’s are thin, very thin. And likely a lot thinner by later tonight. But here’s another tidbit:
Hidden in the Giants’ bullpen is a quiet ex-Mariner right-hander named Dominic Leone. He came in Saturday to stop the sixth-inning bleeding, trailing 2-1 in what ended up as a 9-2 Giants defeat. In eight major league seasons with six different teams, it was Dom’s first postseason appearance. He stepped on the mound with two men on, to face none other than his former fellow Mariner Chris Taylor. Leone walked Taylor to load the sacks, then gave up a couple of doubles for a total of four runs before he got out of the inning.
Talk about a man who needs redemption. Dominic Leone is a much-traveled, hard-working bullpen man on a 106-win club. What a pure baseball tragedy if that was his only shot.