💔 A heartbreaking glove story

In my opinion, the worst way to lose a baseball game is to have the closer blow it.

Second and only slightly less lethal is when the team’s shoddy defense proves fatal.

But after the way the Mariners lost Wednesday’s series finale in Texas, I’m rethinking that pecking order of angst.

If you missed it, the Rangers scored the only three runs of that game in a fifth inning in which the Mariners infield defense failed them.

First, third baseman Brendan Donovan failed to throw out a slow-footed catcher on what was a routine ground ball. Then, with the bases loaded, this Connor Joe character, who was playing first base, air-mailed his throw home, allowing two runs to score.

Ugh. Corey Seager followed with a sacrifice fly, and the Rangers had all the runs they needed.

The Mariners aren’t hitting. At all. But that’s not exactly unusual.

They’re not fielding, either, and that just feels ridiculous. We’ll get to that in a second.

I tend to have a hard time letting go of things that bother me.

Psychologists have a fancy word for this: rumination. And while this isn’t the only reason I tend to hold onto slights both real and perceived, it is a major one.

And earlier this year, a former co-worker at 710 ESPN Seattle posted a video that got me ruminating.

This time, I took a different approach than I usually do and wound up moving on much more quickly than I usually do.

It took longer than it should have …

And I’m still spending too much money to pretend I’m making some big stand …

But I have reached my limit on the number of subscriptions I’m willing to pay for in order to watch my favorite teams play sports.

I don’t want to be too hard on Brendan Donovan.

For one thing, he’s the most potent bat in the Mariners lineup right now.

For another, he’d played all of 36 games at third base prior to this season, and all of those were back in 2022.

So while his glove work hasn’t been great at third, any frustration over that should be directed at the people who came up with this plan.

I’m not inclined to take the same approach with Randy Arozarena in right field. Like Donovan, Arozarena has been hitting, but his futile dives for balls that wind up bouncing by him and his errant throws haven’t helped.

Defense isn’t the Mariners’ biggest problem. That would be the abject lack of hitting, especially in the heart of the order.

The defense isn’t helping, though, and that leaves the pitching staff needing to be perfect for Seattle to win. Somewhere, Felix Hernandez just kicked a garbage can.