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Crash Davis on Game 4 of the 1917 ALCS
(from the T-Mobile Park dugout, chewing on sunflower seeds, glove in hand)
You know, sometimes the game just ain’t about stats or scouting reports or who's got the hot bat. Sometimes it's about pride. Grit. And hittin’ the ever-lovin’ snot outta a fastball when your team’s about to get swept outta the playoffs.
That’s what Jim Roden did today for the Mariners.
Now listen — I’ve seen a lot of ballplayers in a lot of bus leagues who could mash. I caught a guy in Asheville who could hit a rosin bag 400 feet if the pitcher looked at him cross-eyed. But what Roden did today? That’s what men do when the season’s on the line.
Two bombs. One solo in the fifth that got Seattle off the mat, and then a backbreaker in the sixth — three-run shot that had the sound of a barroom door slammin’ shut on Baltimore’s sweep dreams. You hang a breaking ball with two outs? That’s like handing the keys to your truck to a stranger and hopin’ it’s there in the morning. That thing was gone.
Now, give some credit to Baltimore. Kawakami and Hyland went back-to-back in the third — that’s old school. That’s like teaching your kid to hit with a broom handle and a whiffle ball in the backyard. Clean strokes. But you can’t coast on two dingers in October. You need to finish. And today? They didn’t.
Lopez — the Seattle starter — he didn’t have the nastiest stuff I’ve seen, but he had guts. 104 pitches, couple of moonshots against him, but he never caved. And then that Masuda kid came in and shut it down. Three up, three down, three punchouts. Looked like he’d been doing it since Little League.
Look — baseball’s funny. One minute you're up 3-0 in a series and you’re ordering champagne. The next, you're watching a guy trot around the bases like he owns the outfield fence.
Baltimore’s still in the driver’s seat, no doubt. But Seattle? They just threw it into fourth gear and reminded everyone this thing ain’t over ‘til the last out.
And that, rook, is the kind of game that makes you fall in love with this dumb, beautiful game all over again. Now if you’ll excuse me — I gotta go teach someone how to hit the curveball.
Final Score: Mariners 5, Orioles 3.
Series: Baltimore leads 3-1.
Crash says: Never let a guy named Roden get comfortable.
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