Look, Lew Ford knows. He’s read all the articles about Pythagorean wins, and the articles making fun of the articles about Pythagorean wins. He knows that his team spits in the face of every predictive metric out there, and that if there were any such thing as karma, a giant worm would broken out of the earth and devoured the entire bullpen. He knows that Notgraphs has already published seven articles about the Orioles in the last two weeks alone, that there’s a backlash against the backlash against the backlash. He knows all too well the fickle nature of American celebrity culture, its simultaneous thirst for underdog and sacrifice.

Lew Ford knows himself, as well. He recognizes that we live in a universe of chance. He’s spent plenty of time contemplating the unlikeliness of his own existence: as a professional athlete, as a prospective children’s author, as a sperm. He understands our desire to feel secure, to feel as if the world around us behaves according to rules, and that he himself violates those rules. He knows that his own success can only diminish our conceptualization of success itself by adding to its randomness. Lew Ford understands that Lew Ford makes our existence, in some small way, less meaningful because of his own.

That said, Lew Ford knows that the worst thing you can do is to try to control the uncontrollable, to fight against the current and struggle in vain; far better to let it lead you where it may. That no matter how much life confounds you, all you can do is raise your eyebrows and smile back at it.

Lew Ford knows all this. And now, he’s going to ground out weakly to first, because he is Lew Ford.