Mariners manage to meet quota, beat Astros 6-1

the factory must grow

I don’t know why factory building games tickle my brain so much, but they do. Something about making all the virtual little machines work efficiently to make a number go up just does something for me. Which means for the last week my brain has been consumed by the 1.0 release of Satisfactory.

Satisfactory is a factory building game developed and published by Coffee Stain Studios. The goal of the game is to slowly construct increasingly elaborate factories to produce advanced construction parts that are delivered to a space elevator for the purpose of “saving the day,” or so you are told. It differs from the flagship game in the factory genre, Factorio, in that the player is not under near constant attack from enemies and the resource deposits never run out. These two factors combine to make the game relaxing, provided you use the in-game calculator.

You see, Satisfactory — we’re getting to baseball soon, be patient — caters to many different kinds of players. There are those who like to plan things in advance, build orderly factories, decorate their world, and make a train system that puts Sound Transit to shame. And then there are those who take a more… artistic approach. They don’t build organized conveyor belts. They build spaghetti. Here is some spaghetti taken from the game’s Steam page.

Oh yeah. It gets bad. But, at the end of the day, both approaches work just as well and get the job done. And while I don’t know who falls into what category on the Mariners, I think this game can give us some clues.

Bryce Miller, for instance, who threw 7 shutout innings on 97 pitches (including 20 whiffs), is probably the first type. He was clean and effective for nearly the entire game. In 5 of his 7 innings, he sat down the Houston lineup in order. The highlights were an 8 pitch 5th inning and a 9 pitch 6th inning. His two non-1-2-3 innings were the 2nd (a walk and a single) and the 7th, where he finally got into some trouble.

But who among us hasn’t gotten to the end of a long project, like a computer factory, and just started putting stuff together as quickly as possible to get it done? For Bryce, that meant walking Bregman and allowing a single to Yainer Diaz to start the inning. Jon Singleton put up a good fight and managed to move to runners on a ground out back to Bryce. With completion in sight and power running out, Bryce then buckled down and struck out the next two hitters to retire the side and end the threat.

As for the hitters and the types of factories they would build, it’s harder to tell. The lineup actually had a pretty good day today, including taking an early lead in the top of the third inning off this Cal Raleigh line drive single.

With Cal’s methodical baseball brain on both sides of the ball, I think it’d be fair to say that he fits into the orderly factory camp. Luke Raley, on the other hand, who managed a bunt base hit today would definitely be in the second. If you showed him that picture above he’d say it looked awesome. Raley’s bunt base hit did produce, though, as it loaded the bases, allowing for Justin Turner (type 1) to hit a sac fly, followed by a Jorge Polanco (type 2) double.

Dylan Moore had an inconsistent day — which included getting thrown out at third to end the inning, costing the M’s a run that had just barely not crossed the plate — that makes me want to peg him as a spaghetti man, but he did work a walk in 1 of his 2 PAs. Plus I think DMo has been around long enough to make him an organization-focused guy.

Finally, we come to Julio, who continues to stay hot. He went 3-5 today, with a run scored and 2 RBI. I think Julio falls somewhere in the middle. He sets out to build an organized, modular factory, with blueprints and everything. But by the time he gets done, he’s slapping machines down where ever they fit and not caring at all if things clip into each other. And we love him for that, don’t we?

Things are still dire for the Mariners, despite this win. None of the opposing wild card teams played today, and the Mariners don’t hold the tiebreaker over any of them. If they lose a single game this series, the Astros clinch the division. If the Astros win two games after this series, they clinch the division, even if the M’s win out.

The Mariners could have avoided this if they planned ahead during the early stages of construction, back when the game was simple. Their “go zone” approach meant wasting resources and energy, and it may have cost them their year. So let that be a lesson to you if you plan to pick up Satisfactory: plan ahead.

Even if you think you have enough production, at the plate or in the game, it’s never enough. The factory must grow.