Mariners go down with ship, lose 2-1

perhaps the voyage was doomed from the start

In 1684 French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle set sail from Rochefort, France with four newly built ships and 300 men. His goal was the mouth of the newly discovered Mississippi river, with the intention of building a new colony for the French crown. Strategically placed in the Gulf of Mexico, a base in the Mississippi delta would both block further English expansion and allow for the French navy to strike at Spanish ships along the coast of New Spain. Hopes were high, with La Salle believing that his mission could be the turning point in the French war against Spain.

He would not return to France alive.

I will not re-litigate the beginning of the Seattle Mariners’ 2024 season here with you. After just barely missing the playoffs, and seemingly filling the perennial hole at 2B with 2019 All-Star Jorge Polanco, hopes were high. With what was projected to be the best starting rotation in baseball, perhaps 2024 could finally be the year.

Now, 104 games later, that optimism seems almost laughable. The past month of Mariners baseball, since the peak of June 18, has been weak, ineffectual, and at times genuinely distressing to watch. This team has blown a 10 game divisional lead — their largest since the 116-win 2001 season — in record pace. Today, after the Astros beat the A’s 8-1, the Mariners have officially been relegated to second place.

And the worst part of it is, before I even get around to describing it, you know exactly how it happened.

Two weeks after La Salle left France, the war with Spain ended. In a time when the only way to communicate was to move physical letters, he had no way of knowing this. Believing himself still at war, La Salle attacked Spanish shipping, and foolishly overextended himself. One of his four ships was captured in battle before he even made landfall.

When he finally did actually make landfall, he was overconfident in his abilities as a navigator and believed that he had arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi River. In actuality, he had landed in Matagorda Bay in Texas. When he was in America two years earlier, in 1862, he had made several assumptions about the Mississippi and the Gulf coast, many of them in contention with both consensus and fact.

Nevertheless, he set to work building his colony, Fort St. Louis, naming it after his king.

Saint Luis, La Piedra, pitched 6 scoreless innings today, all while striking out 7 Angels. It took a while for him to lock in, facing 5 batters in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th innings. Unlike La Salle, however, he was adept at getting himself out of trouble. His inning-ending strikeout of Brandon Drury in the first with two runners on was especially clean, as he got the second baseman to swing through 96 at the top of the zone.

But you know it wasn’t pitching that doomed this game or this season. It was hitting. It’s always hitting. The one run the M’s got today came from a Mitch Haniger solo shot in the second inning. I’m going to play the clip now because it’s the last highlight you get tonight.

Hope you liked it.

No, the Mariners failed to, as Scott Servais likes to say, “get the big hit.” In fact, aside from one inning, they never even really threatened. Let’s take a look at that inning. Live there for a moment.

In the fourth inning, the Mariners finally got some traffic going against Anaheim starter Griffin Canning. Canning, who had a 5.20 ERA before today’s game, gave up a lead off double to Jorge Polanco, who was finally rewarded for hitting a ball on the screws. A walk from Mitch Haniger and a single from Jason Vosler then loaded the bases with nobody out. Canning then threw a changeup that stayed too high in the zone. Tyler Locklear barrelled it up and hit it 100 mph down the line.

Right into Rengifo’s glove at third. Rengifo stepped on the bag for one, then threw home to get Polanco. Double play. Raley struck out to end the inning. With how hard Locklear hit that ball, if Rengifo had thrown to second instead, the Angels may have even turned three. The Mariners never had more than one baserunner at a time for the rest of the game.

La Salle made many mistakes in his accidental Texas expedition. Perhaps the worst was antagonizing the local Karankawa Indians. An otherwise peaceful fishing and hunting people, they could be vicious fighters. After one of La Salle’s ships was lost in a storm, a group of Karankawa retrieved some supplies from the wreckage. La Salle then sent some men to get these supplies back. The men he sent must not have been the greatest negotiators in France, as they decided to steal canoes from the Indians. This act of piracy, more than La Salle’s general idiocy, doomed the colony.

After two years in Texas, during which time the last two of his ships were lost, La Salle finally realized that he was not on the mouth of the Mississippi at all. Setting out with some 17 men, he made an easterly march to try to find the river. When his men realized where they actually were — that over 200 of them up to this point had died of starvation, disease and needless conflict with the Karankawa over nothing — a mutiny broke out. La Salle and 8 others were killed, having never even seen the Mississippi river.

When the Karankawa learned of La Salle’s death, they attacked the starving camp, sparing only the children. In his hubris and greed, La Salle had doomed the 300 men and women under his command.

Quickly because I don’t wish to dwell on it: the Angels won this game in the 8th inning when, facing Gregory Santos, a single and a ground out put Schanuel on second with two outs. Running on contact, Schanuel was easily able to score on yet another single. Santos was unable to get the next batter out, first balking and then being removed from the game. Per Scott Servais in the post game press conference, it is something in his right knee. The team will know more about it tonight.

Thornton came on in a tie game to get the last out of the inning. But he couldn’t pull that off cleanly, and Brandon Drury hit a ball into the outfield, scoring Willie Calhoun from second. Drury, for his part, got himself out trying to stretch his hit into a double. Maybe he didn’t want to have to watch this game any longer either. Six weak Mariner at-bats later, and the ball game was over.

Now at last, with first place in the division officially given over to the Astros, where do the Mariners go from here?

Perhaps, like La Salle’s “Mississippi” expedition, we were also doomed from the start. But I don’t believe that. This rotation still well and truly is the best in baseball. The problem is that the lineup is one of the worst. The solution then, is obvious: get some good bats. Of course, as with all things, the obvious solution is never easy to pull off. But that’s the job in front of this team and this front office. We cannot expect Jason Vosler and Tyler Locklear to suddenly starting hitting like MVPs.

If the Mariners can’t add anything at the deadline, if they can’t turn things around, then instead of celebrating in October, we’re going to be gathering around the wreckage seeing where it all went wrong.