The kid is gonna' be all right 👍️

It has been a week since Julio Rodriguez was thrown out at third base in one of the oddest plays I’ve ever seen in a baseball game.

Hopefully, that’s enough time for a little of the emotion to have drained from what was a truly unfortunate – and totally avoidable – play in a game the Mariners really couldn’t afford to lose. 

The reaction to it – however – provided a fairly stark reminder of just how allergic I am to a very specific type of sports argument. We’ll get to that in when we Go Deep, but first we’ve got a little bit of ground to cover.

• My most recent column for The News Tribune in Tacoma focused on John Schneider’s best trait when it comes to picking quarterbacks: restraint. He seems to be immune from the idiocy that tends to afflict people (and other NFL teams) when it comes to finding a franchise quarterbacks. He’s limited how much he’ll give up to acquire a quarterback based on a hope and a hunch.

• On June 19, the Mariners held a 10-game lead over Houston in the American League West. On Tuesday, Seattle lost 4-3 in Houston, allowing the Astros to clinch the division. The Mariners postseason chances, on the other hand, are largely theoretical. They’re 2.5 games back of Kansas City and Detroit, which are tied for the final two wild-card spots. The Mariners would also have to pass Minnesota to get to the postseason. In other words: It’s not happening.

• I really wish I could place a bet on my belief that sports betting will come to be seen as a public-health crisis in the next five to 10 years. This is not based on any moral or ethical qualms I have about gambling, but rather the resultsof actual academic research that has followed the legalization of sports gambling in the majority of the states in our country. An editorial published this week in The Atlantic spells this out quite clearly.

It turns out that I get a little emotional while watching an NFL team realize — in real time — that it has found its quarterback.

While I didn’t quite cry while watching Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels torch the Bengals on Monday night, I did start feeling downright sentimental. I kept thinking back to the Seahawks’ overtime victory in Chicago back in December 2012 when Russell Wilson had a similarly revelatory performance.

“You show me another rookie who can do that – what he just did today,” Richard Sherman said afterward. “And I'll show you a great quarterback."

Yes. It truly was a different time as evidenced by the fact Sherm was willing to praise Russ, and his words captured the feeling that pulsed through Seattle’s locker room after the game: We got our quarterback.

"What?" fullback Michael Robinson said. "C'mon, man! The kid is amazing, man. The kid is amazing. I'm just glad he plays for us."

It also turned out to be the last game of Brian Urlacher’s career as he strained his hamstring while chasing Wilson on a third-down run in overtime. The Seahawks needed 2 yards for the first down, Wilson got them five. It was the first of three consecutive third downs that Wilson converted, two with his legs and the last with a 10-yard throw to Doug Baldwin. 

Then he threw what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown pass to Sidney Rice, who was knocked out as he fell into the end zone.

 There wasn’t as much drama in Washington’s victory this week, and Daniels was devastatingly efficient, completing 21 of 23 passes for two touchdowns while also leading Washington with 39 yards rushing.

Watch this throw, though. It’s absolutely wild.

Julio Rodriguez is one of the Mariners’ very fastest players and one of their worst base runners.

This is what is called a paradox, and it was evident even before his base-running blunder at the end of a brutal loss to the Yankees on Sept. 18, a Wednesday.

In case you missed it, Rodriguez was on third base with no outs in the bottom of the 10^th inning, Seattle trailing New York 2-1. Randy Arozarena was at the plate and the Mariners also had a runner at first. The Mariners were in good position to at the very least tie the score. But after Arozarena swung and missed at a 2-2 pitch, his bat went sailing out of his hands, down the third-base line toward Rodriguez.

Julio ducked away from the bat, and then – with his back turned to the plate — took several steps toward New York’s dugout, not realizing the ball was still live. Third-base coach Manny Acta shouted, “Hey!” and raised his arms in disbelief at which point Rodriguez began scurrying toward the bag, but it was too late. Catcher Austin Wells threw to Jazz Chisholm, who tagged out Rodriguez for the second out of the inning.

Rodriguez remained on one knee for a moment after being tagged out. Then he jogged back to the Seattle dugout with what can only be described as a blank expression on his face.

It was a back-breaking play in a game that quite literally could be the difference between Seattle making the playoffs or not.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, it blossomed into a full-fledged referendum on whether the Mariners 23-year-old cares enough about the results of the game he’s playing. Example:

Now I have absolutely nothing against the person who posted this. In fact, I was unaware of his existence prior to seeing this Tweet.

He is, however, expressing the kind of opinion that I absolutely and unambiguously loathe: the attribution of athletic success to very specific personality traits relating to perseverance, focus and hard work.

I have nothing against any of those things. In general, I think they are very helpful and in some cases absolutely necessary to achieve success in most difficult endeavors.

What I object to is how these traits are characterized as being the primary driver of an athlete’s success, and the reason it bothers me is because it leads to the assumption that a lack of success can be attributed to a lack of discipline or focus.

The result — as exemplified by the Tweet I included — is sports coverage that reads like kindergarten fables in which the tortoise’s persistence wins out over the rabbit’s speed, the ant’s diligence proves superior to the grasshopper’s fun-loving ways.

I think this sort of coverage leads to fake hustle and athletes who are more concerned with looking like they want to win than actually doing the things that correlate with winning. That’s another column, though.

Instead, I’ll just spell out as plainly as I can how I feel about the play in question: 

1. I believe that it was a bad mistake, but an innocent one. It’s entirely understandable Rodriguez turned away as the bat came toward him.

2. It’s more difficult – but not impossible – to understand why he thought it was a dead ball. There was a bat in the field of play. However, that bat was not impeding anyone’s ability to make a play, and the other men on the diamond – both players and coaches – realized the ball was live. Julio’s awareness in this instance was very poor.

3. I think Julio needs to improve his base-running in general, and part of that is his situational understanding. He is incredibly fast, and therefore should be one of the team’s best base-runners. He is not, and improving this seems incredibly doable when compared to something like getting better at hitting a curveball.

4. I don’t believe Julio’s blank expression was evidence of the fact he doesn’t care. I think he was shocked and what we saw as he jogged to the dugout was a person in disbelief, trying to process both what had happened and the significance.

Now, if you’re one of the people who saw his reaction as proof he didn’t care, I have a question: How do you explain how Julio’s been hitting this month?

I’m being serious. He’s been destroying the baseball. He was named AL Player of the Week for the very week that this play occurred.

If that’s the result of someone who doesn’t care or isn’t focused, well sign me up for that every single solitary year. In fact, if he’s going to hit this way, I’m willing to overlook one absolutely brain-dead base-running mistake per month. Now, I’m silly enough to think that he can learn to avoid committing these brain-dead base-running mistakes without there being a negative impact on his hitting, but if I have to watch him get thrown out on the bases to enjoy this production, I’ll do it.

And this brings me to my fundamental objection to the people who are screaming for Julio to become serious, more focused. Sports is chock full of guys who thrive and excel while being anything but diligent and focused upon their craft. There are some athletes who truly believe that concentrating gets in the way of their performance.

One of my favorite examples comes from my former co-worker Dave Wyman, who played nine years in the NFL. He had a teammate in Denver, who smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol. This guy was a really good pass rusher, and as his career progressed, he decided he was going to clean up his act and focus on taking care of himself so he could play his best.

Except he stopped racking up sacks, and all his teammates told him he was living too clean and needed to get back to his sinning ways.

Now, I do not actually think that the cessation of alcohol and tobacco had a negative impact on his play. I can totally buy the idea it did not have the positive impact that you would expect, though. I’ve seen tons of players for whom trying too hard became a problem and got in the way of not just their instincts, but their confidence.

I’m not defending Julio or trying to say the mistake he made wasn’t that bad. It was a dumb play that had a profoundly negative effect, and I think he should really work to avoid anything approaching that again.

I don’t think it’s more than that, though. He is an extraordinary player, and his poor base running is not enough to warrant an overhaul of his entire mental approach to the game nor is it an indictment on his professionalism.

/rant