A bright August Wednesday made dreary
As the German philosopher Immanuel Kant once asked: “what the fuck is happening to us right now?”
It’s an admittedly modern translation from the German in which Critique of Pure Reason was originally written. A more traditional translator might have instead written: “what do we know and how do we know it? How do we know that we know it? Is it even possible to know anything?”
What follows is an interpretation of Kant that will surely incense any philosophers that happen to be reading. I ask that they refrain from yelling at me, as I might not know anything about philosophy but I’m pretty sure that they don’t either.
My layman’s understanding of Critique of Pure Reason is that Kant argues that all human knowledge is dependent on human experience. That is to say, we cannot prove the existence of absolute truths independent of human experience, because we have no way of accessing truth except by human experience. This, of course, is a source of great consternation to humans. We want to know things. Knowing means we can predict, predicting means we can control, and controlling means we can achieve.
As we have settled into the modern world, we have begun to realize how much we don’t know. Our models of cosmology, so successful at prediction for decades, have begun to show cracks. Quantum computing, posited for years, remains out of our grasp. What has remained the most perplexing question of all, though, is how to tell when a god damn baseball team will be good or not.
Maybe Kant was right. Maybe knowing is impossible.
We have models that can try to tell us whether a baseball player is good. Certain stats have better year-over-year predictive value than others. Baseball Reference’s version of WAR is supposed to tell us how a player performed. Fangraphs’ version of WAR is supposed to be a representation of how a player should have performed. When the dust settles, we can look at a team’s statistics and ask whether or not they played well. Whether they underperformed. What their true talent level is. What they’re likely to be in the future. Whether reality matched perception.
For all of the prognosticating before the season and pouring over statistics during the season, the Mariners end up with a concrete record at the end of the year. The other statistics are just window-dressings. As Mariners fans, our preconception is that the team will underperform, miss the playoffs, and make us sad. For years, reality has matched perception. This year appears to be no different.
Tonight appeared to be no different.
Tonight’s game was supposed to be the crown jewel of this week’s series against the mediocre Tigers. George Kirby was taking on Tarik Skubal in a matchup of two of the best pitchers in all of baseball. Runs, we thought, were sure to be at a premium.
The very first batter of the game, Tigers right fielder Wenceel Pérez, took Kirby deep to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead. So much for a premium. Kirby limited the damage to just the one run, but it took him 28 pitches to get out of the first inning. Another 19 to get out of the second. 20 to exit the third, but not before giving up another run. The fourth inning saw another home run to make it a 3-0 deficit, and another 18 pitches.
Meanwhile, Tarik Skubal was as-advertised. Or maybe the hapless Mariners were as-advertised. In any case, Skubal retired the first ten Mariners he saw before Randy Arozarena broke the streak with an infield single and Cal Raleigh gave the Mariners a bit of hope with a two-run blast to cut the lead to 3-2.
Kirby turned in an 11 pitch effort in the fifth inning, but it was too little, too late. His final pitch count stood at 96 through five innings, and he was pulled for the Mariners’ volatile bullpen. To their credit, the trio of JT Chargois, Collin Snider, and Austin Voth cobbled together three clean innings.
The Mariners weren’t able to make it matter.
Skubal made it through seven innings without further incident. The eighth inning saw the Mariners face reliever Jason Foley, who is very much not Tarik Skubal. Josh Rojas and Victor Robles were retired easily, but Randy Arozarena laced a double down the line.
With Andrés Muñoz warming and Cal Raleigh at the plate, the Mariners had a real chance to separate their reality from perception. Cal Raleigh got a hanging slider and hit it 104 MPH to dead center at a near-ideal 33° launch angle.
It wasn’t enough.
With the threat extinguished and the side retired, Scott Servais opted not to pitch Muñoz in the ninth. Instead, in came Jonathan Hernández, who has typically been reserved for low-leverage situation. Was this decision a nod to Scott’s perceived over-usage of Muñoz? A sign of trust in Hernández? A simple lack of faith in his ninth inning hitters?
Whatever the reason, Hernández imploded on the mound, walking the first two batters and giving up a total of three runs. The ninth inning hitters ended up backing up Scott’s decision not to put a high-stress inning on Muñoz: Justin Turner walked, but Jorge Polanco and Dylan Moore combined for three outs between them to end the game.
With that loss and the Astros’ win, the Mariners once again find themselves a full game back of the AL West lead. There are still 47 games to be played, but it’s hard not to wonder whether the Mariners’ recent show of life was merely a product of getting to play the White Sox.
Are the Mariners good, and underperforming now? Are they bad, and overperformed earlier this year? Does it matter? Will the next 47 games change our perception of what it means to be a Mariners fan?
Do there exist any absolute truths outside of perception? Or when we cease to perceive the Mariners, will they cease to exist?
Perhaps that’s as good a reason as any for turning off the television every once in a while.
