Some say reality is divided into stacked levels, intertwining and blurring and colliding, all existing together and all separately. If there is a level on which dreams are found, it too dances the same dance and is intertwined with our existence. A multi-phase existence in which the realm of dreams is also the realm of nightmares and never was, always will be and never will be. The Seattle Mariners often seem to exist on one of these levels, a level all their own that occasionally coincides with the level of the Good Baseball Team and sometimes with the level of the Bad Baseball Team, and sometimes somehow both and somehow never either .
As the remaining days of the season wound down, the Seattle Mariners found themselves on the outside of playoff contention, albeit on the precipice of entry. But as many have probably said too many times, plus one too many times now, they were in control of their own destiny as they would face the opponents who stood in their way. One game after another, they not only seemed to not answer the call, but they seemed to push the unanswered phone into a swamp, never to be found again.
Until yesterday, when they once again joined the levels of chaos and finally showed a sign of life they hadn’t had in weeks with a win, splitting the series with the Houston Astros. Today, those signs of life were there at the start of the game, but quickly disappeared as reviving their dreams quickly turned into nightmares and Seattle ultimately lost the game 8-3 to the Astros.
Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images
Bryce Miller takes the mound and the world around the edges bleeds and mixes as you focus your attention on the 6’2″ right-hander. He spins his fastball, spins and throws out Bregman at second, he spins, spins…
Miller spins a middle-middle fastball to Yordan Álvarez… Álvarez doesn’t just spin it around, he spins it, hits, swings, swings, spins, spins it over the wall in right-center… he… equalizes him out in the fourth round. .. but when…
The edges blur to the center and the world spins, back to the first inning…
Oh yeah. JP Crawford on…first pitch? No. The second. I remember it because it was a few inches inside… but Crawford hit it over the right field corner anyway… and then… Framber Valdez started every at-bat behind it, there were runners in scoring position with no outs… How ? Oh, the Mariners…I forgot…but still…tie…tie…
It turns again and we’re back in the fourth inning…
Miller is still on the mound, well I like Miller. Still undecided. Draw, neutral, but blurry neutral… and there it is, I can see it, on the blurry edges… hope… Mauricio Dubón is at the start, runners in first and third. First and third place runners? No, that’s not right… what happened… Miller pitched well… Miller… was…
When did Mauricio Dubón develop a power shot… When did the Mariners lose 4-1… on Mauricio Dubón’s power shot… that doesn’t feel… is it a dream…?
Deep, deep we fall… forever and not far at all, until the end of the fourth inning…
Breathe… the dream is alive. Hope. At the blurred edges. The game is young… the game is…
Eugenio Suárez hits. Framber Valdez is still pitching. I think that’s good. The bases are loaded but there are two outs… On the blurred edges… He did it! The Grounder sneaks through and now they only follow one! Good! Good vibes… Good vibes… they’re just behind… they’re just behind in the overall rankings…
The swirling becomes more intense than ever, the opalescence stretching across our vision until everything comes into shape and we see the seventh inning and a Mariner on the mound.
Justin Topa is on the mound, good. Topaz. Solid. A solid sixth, and now…Altuve flies to center, one down…Alex Bregman flies to…no, not now, why is Teoscar Hernández blurry…I feel…how? Somehow Teo didn’t notice, but it was right… okay, look, and… does he see the blurry edges? How did it get on the wall… and now Bregman is in third place… No…
They walked with Yordan, they keep walking with Yordan, yeah… they walk with Yordan and you just have to get out, wait, mother – Tucker. It would be Kyle Tucker. But Topa did it… no, not Topa… Brash, they brought in Matt Brash and then Tucker… France was almost there… so blurry it almost made me sick…
Abreu is on base? Oh yeah, the RBI single. And now Michael Brantley, he always reached out to us… but that was back then, but he always… reached out to us. But… Crawford almost made it… so blurry… blurry…
This time the opalescence of the movement is lined with a negative static image, blue and white and sparks, and it blurs and burns into the bottom of the sixth inning.
Make it stop. That’s not the dream. It started as a dream… this is…
Why are we going backwards, we were behind… behind… Oh yes, Hector Neris showed his whole ass…
The scene changes again, but this time the shooting is different. Our gaze revolves around a focal point and gets closer and closer. Don’t just spin… a spiral… until the eighth inning, spiral…
Trent Thornton pitches. I like Thornton, but this is a really important game. It’s never over until it’s actually over, and if we’re suggesting Thornton, he’s the guy who could even give up a home run…
Maldonado. This triggered a dream… This is not a… a dream is a nightmare… this is a… I can’t see it anymore… I think it’s still there, but I can not seeing where the hope went. I feel… I just want to wake up.
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