Well that was a nice little release.

That sweep at the hands of the stupid Yankees this weekend really deflated most of the hope I had been holding onto for this season. Granted, 6.5 games isn’t some huge margin that can’t be made up over the course of 130 more to play, but the good writers at USSMariner.com put up some pretty sobering numbers when it comes to what we have to hope for to overtake a very good Angels team. We have to outperform them by a pretty good clip the rest of the way, and let’s face it, there’s nothing to really indicate that we have a better team than them.

With all of that said, dominant performances like tonight are a real pleasure to watch.

Jarrod Washburn pitched himself a great game until he struggled and had to come out in the 7th. Wladimir Balentien connecting on another home run already is promising…we might have a good one in that kid. Richie Sexson, for all of his flaws, hasn’t lost the pop in his bat as I had feared. He has even shown some decent bat speed with some of the pitches he’s turned on.

The Angels kept pace and won today, but for the moment I’m just not going to get overly concerned about what they’re doing…the way the M’s have done, giving too much credence to the playoff race makes me react like Jim Mora, Sr., in his famous rant.

I can still never get enough of that clip…

Point is, I just want to see the Mariners play some consistently good baseball. If they can start winning substantially more than they’re losing, then we can hope the standings start taking care of themselves.