A look Back on A Better Mariners Weekend in Boston

Since the Mariners swept the Red Sox in Boston last weekend the Ms have gone 2-4 against the Texas Rangers and the Washington Nationals, winning one game and losing two in each of those series’.

But with all the gloom this week brought, the Mariners are still only 0.5 games out of the second Wild Card spot.

I wanted to flashback quickly to that first game in Boston, where Felix Hernandez was on the mound and I was in the stands to watch some good ol’ fashioned Mariners baseball.

Felix was tagged for a 3-run homer by Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, and left the game trailing 3-0. I was of course disappointed because I wanted to witness Felix throw a perfect game at Fenway. Things got more depressing as the outs added up and up and the Mariners were down to their final out in the 9th inning, still trailing by three runs.

Koji Uehara, the stud closer for the Sox, had two strikes on what could have been the last batter of the game. The entire crowd– or at least the ones that remained as many had left in hopes of beating the traffic after an ‘easy Red Sox victory’– was on their feet, clapping in unison and awaiting the inevitable victory.

The victory did not come.

The first Mariner batter got on base. Then another two strike count and miraculously another baserunner. Then another and another.

Throughout the entire game the college kids sitting behind me were sassing the Mariners, about how ‘cute’ it was that the Mariners thought they had a chance.

Little did they know they did.

Before that inning was over the Mariners took the lead and even added an insurance run, ahead 5-3. All scored with two outs in the top of the 9th.

When Dustin Ackley cranked the single that game the Mariners the lead, I was screaming on my feet as the rest of the crowd deflated back into theirs. I stood up, arms spread wide, and smiled.

The Red Sox had done a similar thing to the Mariners last season, and went on to win the World Series.

If the M’s do anything remotely close to that in 2014, that 9th-inning comeback win at Fenway will be one of the first games I always remember.