At least Dominic Canzone had a good day
Victor Robles is a danger to himself and others. In Robles’s short time in a Mariners uniform, we’ve quickly grown used to his max effort defense, electric baserunning, and melodramatic panache. It’s a thrill ride, and it wins baseball games, but it comes with risk. And we saw the results in the ninth inning of the Mariners’ 5-4 loss to the Giants in San Francisco this afternoon.
With the game tied, a runner on first, and one out in the bottom of the ninth, Patrick Bailey sent a ball soaring into the right field corner. After covering more ground than a David Foster Wallace essay, Robles somehow made the grab and went tumbling into the net, appearing to dislocate his shoulder in the process. To be clear, that’s just what it looked like to me based on his arm limply and somewhat grotesquely hanging in the aftermath, but we’ll surely get an actual diagnosis soon.
Robles stayed down. As I mentioned, we’re used to Robles milking a moment, but it was clear that something was genuinely wrong as soon as Julio arrived on the scene and immediately called for the trainer. Robles was carted off while supporting his left arm with his right. And despite Robles’ heroic efforts, the game ended on the next pitch anyway.
Before we go on, can I just say this: what is the net doing this far down the line anyway? I was fully on board with extending the nets, but I feel like once you reach 300 feet, things are probably OK. Especially since the foul territory tends to shrink in most parks as you get farther from the plate, it seems to me that at a certain distance, a player is more likely to get hurt by the net than a fan is by a foul ball. At Oracle Park, it would take a Kennedyesque magic line drive to wrap around the stands and get into the section that Robles runs into. Take down the net! Is this a hot take? I don’t even know.
But I digress. To get back on track, I’ll note that it was Robles’s own fault that he was even out there. The game went into the top of the ninth inning with the Mariners losing 4-3. But it was Robles who singled to left field. And it was Robles who stole third base. And it was Robles who scored the tying run on a Randy Arozarena base knock. If not for Robles, the Mariners would already have lost. If that combination of tying the game and then making the 26th out in spectacular fashion doesn’t count as a noteworthy individual contribution to a game, then what is the Sun Hat Award even for?
But we started at the ending. To go back to the beginning, for a few innings, it looked like Bryan Woo would wear the Sun Hat today, as he started the game in untouchable fashion. With a little extra oomph on his heater, including his second-fastest ever pitch, he carved through the Giants lineup the first time through the order. And with Julio and Cal both homering early in the game to set up a 2-0 lead, it seemed as if the Mariners were cruising to victory.
But a Bryan Woo game is always a tightrope. It seems like he shouldn’t be able to get away with pounding fastballs over and over again, and yet he so often does. Not today. The second time through the order, the Giants were ready to feast on Woo’s four-seamers, forcing him to start turning to his secondaries. And there’s a reason those pitches are secondaries rather than primaries. San Francisco was mostly able to wait them out and do damage when Woo got back to the four-seamer. In a blink, the Giants had taken a 4-2 lead. To Woo’s credit, he did eventually recover and have a nice sixth inning, striking out both Mike Yastrezemski, who’d homered earlier, and Matt Chapman, the Giants’ best hitter.
Is it a crime to care too much? To fly too high? To ball too hard? For Robles, today, it was, and he’ll almost certainly get 5150ed to the Injured List. And though that will safeguard both the league and himself from further damage while he rehabilitates, it’ll be us, the viewers, that are in danger in the meantime, forced to watch an uninspiring team without its most dynamic player.