Mariners Morsels - aka "Free Adam Moore and Rich Poythress! (George Sherrill is FREE!)"

So the world's back on its axis now. The fulcrum has been balanced. Am I the only person getting good vibes from the following:

• The Ball's Back in Boston
• Jeff Nelson says his Mia Culpa
• PositivePaul Thanks Howard Lincoln (either just before or just after Nellie's act of contrition?)

Okay, I probably am. Still, there are more and more intangible things cropping up as to why I feel the 2004 M's suffered from a black cloud of doom hanging over their head, and that 2005 will be a whole lot better for M's fans (and players, for that matter).

Part of me still believes that the 2004 M's could've added both Miguel Tejada AND Vladimir Guerrero and still would've suffered a similar fate. I mean, we could've signed both of them, and they probably would've gone down with "Glaus"-ian injuries early. The stathead forecastors couldn't predict the complete drudgery that was 2004. A lot of blame could be spread around, but the season was a disaster more because of a cumulation of stastical oddities and intangible weirdness.

Which brings me back to the Yin-Yang thing. I've said it before, and continue to believe that 2004 was the antithesis to 2001. That 2001 team should not have won 116 games. The 2004 team should not have lost 99 games (more than both the 77 M's and the 69 Seattle Pilots in their inaugural years). Since the law of averages definitely applies to baseball, the M's should be done with aberrations for awhile. That's why I thing the M's don't have a 30 game hole to crawl out of, really. It may be closer to 15 or 20, but it's definitely not 30. They've done a lot to address the disparity in the ticks between the W and the L columns. The rest just needs to happen once questions start to be answered in Spring Training.

In just over two weeks, the picture will start to become much clearer. The biggest question mark that yet remains in my book (pitching) will start to be answered. I can hardly wait.

Don't count the M's out of 2005 just yet. There's no reason to wait until 2006 to hope for division contention. I believe it just might happen this season. The mojo of '95 will be rediscovered...

Speaking of the Mojo of '95...

Post edited and moved over to Lookout Landing's new digs, to test out the whole diary thing, which seems to be waay cool...