You just have to hope that the pitcher doesn’t do anything stupid, like throw a fastball or hanging a slider down the middle. No, Alvarez might be a robot or a monster, but it’s not time to give him the Barry Bonds treatment with an All-Star pitcher on the mound. The next batter, Alex Bregman, singled home an insurance run, as if to prove this exact point. This game even provided a do-over with the exact same situation in the eighth inning - two outs, runner on first - and the Mariners walked Alvarez intentionally, pushing the runner into scoring position. Castillo is an ultra-talented pitcher, and Alvarez is still likelier to make an out than not. Peña’s hit might have been the fifth-weakest batted ball in the game, but do you know what the weakest one was? It was Alvarez’s groundout in the first inning. If you want to blame Servais for not walking him intentionally, that’s your prerogative, but it was the correct move only in hindsight. The single brought up Yordan Alvarez again. Which is why I don’t use the words “hideous, soul-gargling, demon sport” lightly. But it feels like baseball specializes in these kinds of moments. Football players can fumble the ball, only to have it fall forward, where a teammate pounces on it for a first down. Good basketball defenses can force awkward shots that still fall in. Other sports have versions of this kind of disappointment. It had a 40 degree launch angle and was hit at 71 mph, which was the fifth-weakest batted ball of the day. And in the bottom of the sixth inning, with two outs, Castillo threw a 98 mph sinker on the hands of Jeremy Peña, who swung and hit a bloop. The team that did a lot of things right sent their best pitcher to the mound and asked him to do even more things right. Doing a lot of things right is how the Mariners got here. It was a smart, inspired and forward-thinking trade. The Mariners did several things right, going all the way back to trading for Luis Castillo because he seemed like the kind of pitcher who, if called upon, could make a very good team look bad in the postseason. That sort of easy explanation doesn’t exist for Game 2. You can point a stubby finger at the TV and understand the causality behind the heartbreaking loss. That starting pitcher came into the game having allowed five home runs to the last 29 batters he saw in October, and he was brought in to face an anthropomorphic home run. The Mariners lost Game 1 of the ALDS when manager Scott Servais tried to get creative and use a starting pitcher as a closer. An umpire, a manager, a player, all of the above. The postseason is easier to comprehend when you get to blame someone. Seattle: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t - the Yordan Alvarez conundrum Here’s a rewind of the sixth day of MLB postseason action, which was reduced to one game thanks to rain in New York. On a late-inning Yordan Alvarez home run. The Mariners and their long-suffering, extremely patient fans might disagree at the moment.
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