It never feels good to have someone tell you that \u201calmost isn\u2019t good enough,\u201d or that \u201cclose doesn\u2019t cut it.\u201d Growing up in the south, the phrase I always heard was \u201cclose only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.\u201d People use these sayings whenever some who failed to reach a goal says that it\u2019s okay because they were \u201cclose.\u201d And often, they\u2019re right. If you were \u201cclose\u201d to making that big sale or if you \u201calmost\u201d didn\u2019t crash your forklift the end result is still a disaster. Hell, the Mariners were close to making the World Series last year, and we all remember how that turned out.<\/p>\n
But often, especially for the small stuff, close does count, so long as you do your best. Today, I almost did all my laundry. I\u2019ll finish tomorrow. I\u2019m close to finishing the book I\u2019m reading, but I see how it\u2019s going to end. Tonight the Mariners were, for a while at least, close to winning a Spring Training game. Maybe they\u2019ll win the next one.<\/p>\n
The Mariners almost had some productive at-bats against Robbie Ray in the first inning. Cole Young led off the game and worked a six pitch at-bat by fouling everything off before whiffing on pitch 6. J.P. Crawford watched from the on deck circle and wanted in on the fun, working a 7-pitch AB that ended in a groundout. Brennen Davis got bored and grounded out on the first pitch. Almost some productive outs.<\/p>\n
The Giants almost put a rally together in their half of the first, with Matt Chapman and Will Brennan hitting back-to-back one out singles, but Mariners pitcher Cooper Criswell neutralized the threat by inducing a double play from Casey Schmitt. The Mariners were also close to putting a rally together in the second, but likewise stranded runners on first and second.<\/p>\n
In the top of the third Jonny Farmelo hit a leadoff triple, and almost didn\u2019t score with Cole Young and J.P. Crawford making back-to-back outs, but was able to scamper home on J.P.\u2018s groundball. After a few quiet innings it looked like the Mariners were close to carrying their slim lead into the \u201cevery starter leaves the game\u201d portion of a Spring Training game. Alas, close did not count.<\/p>\n
Carlos Vargas replaced Criswell on the bump in the bottom of the fourth, and sadly wasted no time in getting hit all up and down the field. Brennan, Schmitt, and Matos led off the inning with a trio of singles to load up the bases and put all of the pressure on Vargas\u2019 shoulders. That pressure may have gotten to him, as he found it impossible to find the zone and issued a free pass to Grant McCray. From a pitcher\u2019s perspective, a no-out bases loaded walk is very close to the worst possible outcome. You\u2019re in the same situation and you just gave them a run for free. The worst possible outcome is of course a grand slam \u2014 hey what\u2019s this video of Jake Holton doing here?<\/p>\n
After that back-breaker, the Giants really wanted to get another rally going. Christian Koss almost even got a hit to speed that along. But just almost, thanks to Cole Young.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, the Giants went into full Spring Training mode and pulled half their starters from the game. The Mariners clawed back a couple of runs on a Cole Young single and a J.P. Crawford sac fly, but couldn\u2019t keep the line moving long enough. And honestly? They didn\u2019t even come close.<\/p>\n
The Giants secondary squad contended with Jose A. Ferrer on the mound in the bottom of the 5th, and had no trouble extending their lead back to five runs, with the capper being a two-RBI double by Bryce Eldridge. Even though the Mariners were able to get another run back in the sixth, the game still wasn\u2019t nearly close enough. In a close game when the offense is clicking, singles can turn into doubles and doubles can turn into homers. But when you\u2019re down by a grand slam or more, everyone is sad. And no one plays good baseball when they\u2019re sad.<\/p>\n
[Speaking of sad, Jake had to end the recap here, because he is in Texas and did not realize this game would end at midnight his time. I am here to tell you things did not get better, tonight. The Mariners will try again tomorrow, in a home game back in Peoria at the normal 12 PM PT start time. -KP]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It never feels good to have someone tell you that \u201calmost isn\u2019t good enough,\u201d or that \u201cclose doesn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,38487,77416,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-607257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattle-mariners-game-recaps","14":"tag-seattle-mariners-scores-standings","15":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116175223334417618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}