Take me out of the ballgame

We thought paid sports columnists were the only cynical, facetious, sarcastic, unforgiving, pessimistic, cheap-shot jerks out there. Not so if you look at a few posts from the blogosphere during the game that later became the Seattle Mariners' 14-3 loss on Tuesday to the New England Patriots – er, Boston Red Sox. The following chat (selected posts, un-retouched) is courtesy of the USS Mariner blog. And hey, this is just from the first half hour of the game. 4/10/2007 Game 4, Mariners at Red Sox Mustard said: April 10th, 2007 at 10:23 am Any predictions on Weaver today? joesuperdad said: April 10th, 2007 at 10:29 am Does horrible count as one? I'd love to be surprised, though. zzyzx said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:18 am Good to see that our hitters aren't rusty. They're playing just like they were on Wednesday. Dave said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:20 am Weaver's first three pitches of the game: 88, 86, 87. All fastballs. Oy. Swungonandbelted said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:21 am Ball 5 ... ball 6 ... Dave said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:21 am 5 pitches, all balls, topping out at 88. This looks baaad. Evan said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:22 am I think we found the cure for Boston's OBP problems. zzyzx said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:22 am HEY!!! A STRIKE!!! Jar said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:22 am What the hell Jeff. revbill said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:22 am Hargrove needs to go out there and stall until it starts snowing on Thursday. Swungonandbelted said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:22 am sympathy strikeâ'ꂬ¦ Evan said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:23 am I vote that Jeff Weaver retires between innings. Evan said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:25 am Jeff Weaver is making me miss Ryan Franklin. Kill me now. Dave said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:26 am 89, but it only went 58 feet. revbill said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:26 am Guys, we're talking about a World Series Veteran here. You need to stop being so caught up in stats like "balls" and "strikes" and "speed." Swungonandbelted said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:27 am A triple play gets him out of the inning though ... Evan said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:27 am Get Woods up. Now. Dave said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:28 am He finally gets over 90, throwing a 91 MPH meatball right down the middle. This is going to get very ugly. zzyzx said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:28 am I'm amazed that the Sox somehow haven't scored yet. Time for the triple play! _David_ said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:28 am Manny is conceivably slow enough to be tripled up. louder said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:28 am Great pick-up Bavasi. Weaver is probably wishing he could pitch to Vidro right now. Swungonandbelted said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:29 am J. Weaver ... hmmmâ'ꂬ¦ Jared's a pretty damn good pitcher ... I'll go ahead and sign J. Weaver up ... zzyzx said: April 10th, 2007 at 11:32 am So if we never actually record an out, at some point it'll rain and the game will be called.