Another one down and another one down and another one bites the dust... as multiple Mariners get hurt against A's

Sometimes, baseball sucks. That's how I felt during the Mariners 3-1 loss to the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday night. Part of me wants to blame a conversation that I had at work in the afternoon before the game, but the rational part of me knows that it had no true impact on what happened.

Talking to a buddy, we were curious if the Mariners could hold it together throughout the rest of the season. We were just talking about if the offense could keep producing, and if it was possibly that the Mariners peaked too early. That's not the important part I want to talk about. It's when another co-worker came up and asked if the Mariners were having good luck or bad luck with injuries, saying something along the lines of "they haven't had many injuries this year, right?".

I defended the team a bit, saying that they were without their backup catcher, and that their starting LF and supposed #2 pitcher were both out. The team wasn't lucky, but they weren't unlucky either.

Only a couple of hours later, George Kirby was scratched from the game with an illness. If I remember correctly, he was sick before a start against the Athletics last year as well, tried to pitch through it, and didn't look good. So, maybe sitting this one out wouldn't be a terrible idea.

Then, in what was literally minutes before the start of the game, Julio Rodriguez was scratched and Marlowe was put into Center. It came out later that he had foot soreness. The Mariners played well a couple of weeks ago without Julio in the lineup. Maybe they could again?

It kept going though. Ty France had a ball hit him in the hand, and he was removed from the game. Then, JP had a wierd slide, and that is something that we are going to need to keep an eye on. It what seemed like 2 hours, we lost most people's favorite starting pitcher, the star of the franchise, Mr HBP, and then the charasmatic leader of the team.

Yeah, that's not good at all.

I really do want to blame my co-worker. It's his fault. I know our conversation had nothing to do with all the injuries and scratches from the lineup. It doesn't help that the Mariners looked bad on offense, mustering just 4 hits and 6 walks against Oakland in the 3-1 loss. Maybe they can get back on track in the afternoon finale, but it still made for a bad way to end the day. Injuries happen, and the Mariners faced the brunt of that Tuesday.

I changed my mind. It's definitely his fault.