If you subscribe to print magazines (presumably because you felt bad for someone claiming to raise money for charity), you may be aware that Felix Hernandez and Robinson Cano are on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. And man, they look great.
Look at them, looking great.
Iām so amped for Mariners baseball I barely understand whatās happening. Not only do the Mariners have Felix and Robbie, who are both goddamn phenomenal baseball players, but this spring training has been a monthlong parade of Mariners kids flashing skills.
Pitcher Taijuan Walker? Not walking guys or giving up runs. Shortstop Brad Miller? Hitting the stuffing out of the ball while playing passable defense. Catcher Mike Zunino? Not striking out all the goddamn time. Pitcher James Paxton? Not being hurt right now.
Itās all too much. These are the Mariners. THE MARINERS. Iām out-of-control excited about the potential of the Mariners. Right now, if a stranger in a weird futuristic coat and sunglasses ran up to me on the street and said, āIāM YOU FROM THE FUTURE, STOCK UP ON CANNED GOODS,ā I would first tell him to shut up, then ask him how many games the Mariners won in 2015; if he said a number below 90, Iād report him to the police, and if he said a number above 90, Iād say, āI knew it,ā then high-five him, and then report him to my nearest TimeCop for trying to rewrite the future by messing with the past.
The only problem this Mariners team is creating is my inability to temper my expectations. Baseball seasons are long, miserable slogs. There are 162 games, involving radically different combinations of players dealing with fluke results, streaks, and slumps. No matter how good a team looks, they arenāt going to win every game. These arenāt the Seahawks; we arenāt going to get the equivalent of three straight years without a double-digit loss. There will be some bad weeks this year, and those weeks could aggregate into months, and this whole season could be bad. Baseball seasons are unpredictable beasts, full of variance in the form of injuries, underperformance, and randomness. This could be a bad year.
But I donāt believe it will be. As I typed those words just now, I didnāt believe my fingers. This is going to be a great year for Mariners baseball. So letās gaze again upon the beautiful faces of Robinson Cano and Felix Hernandez, and remember itās 12 days until real baseball starts, and for the first time in a decade thereās reason to believe the Mariners will be playing real baseball well.
Lookinā good, fellas! Lookinā good!