Anyone still paying attention?

Yesterday, the Mariners dropped their second consecutive 5-4 game to the Los Angeles Angels to complete a 2-7 home stand.  For some reason, 32,000 fans attended the mid-day game, as they had more enjoyable things to do.  Such as slowly pull out their fingernails while listening to Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music.”

Maybe because the drama hinted at inter-division drama, as roughly 78,000 fans attended the Angels’ the three-game sweep.  As it was a mid-week series, that number isn’t so bad.  Which leads me to ask: why?  With an average ticket price of 24 dollars, that was nearly $2 million spent by hard-working fans to help finance this trainwreck of a team.

There was discussion on Geoff Baker’s blog about having a bag day at Safeco- buying cheap seats, putting bags on heads and then walking out.  Yeah, you can do that and make a statement.  But Bavasi & Co. will still make money off of you.  Is it worth it?

John McLaren totally lost his cool when he went on a profanity-laced tirade after yesterday’s game.  Good for him.  But as Bavasi said, “He could have said that a month ago.”  Back then it may have meant something, as opposed to waking up this morning 15.5 games out in a division that, due to the fact that it is short-handed, each team supposedly has a chance.

And you know, anything could happen.  The M’s could play .700 ball between now and the end of the year.  Which won’t happen, of course.  And if they keep up this pace of winning two games a week- and consider that the Angels needed 94 wins to wrap up the division last year- I am targeting the Mariners to be out of it when they drop their 69th game in a road series against the Texas Rangers the last week of July.

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering, the Mariners have now passed- or dropped, depending on your perspective- the pace of the 1983 team’s 60-102 record.  Indeed, the current pace of 57-105 would result in the worst Mariners’ won loss record ever, even beating the 1980 (59-103) and 1978 (56-104) clubs.

By the way, Baseball Prospectus currently ranks the Mariners’ pitching staff as the third-worst in the league, compared by SNVLAR (Support-Neutral Line-up Adjusted Added over Replacement).  According to the geeks, only the Tigers and the Rangers have worse staffs.  Of course, Detroit and Texas have dominating offenses to compensate for their staff of rag arms.  While the Mariners- currently batting .230 with runners on- turn the Rangers’ pitching staff into a collection of Cy Youngs who toss a string of consecutive innings agaisnt the M’s.

Sigh.  Does anybody even care any more?