Says Kirby Arnold:

The Mariners this morning released right-handed pitcher Yusmeiro Petit. He'd pitched in three exhibition games this month, working 4 2/3 innings with a 3.86 ERA.

The M's already designated Youppi for assignment a little while ago, and he cleared waivers, so this is the second time in six weeks that Yusmeiro gets to feel completely unwanted. Poor lil guy.

I'm guessing this has less to do with Petit and more to do with the Mariners simply having too many arms to go around. Petit made some degree of sense when he was first acquired in November, but since then the rotation has kind of built up and left Petit on the outside looking in. More recently he'd been considered a possible option for long relief, but with so many other options hanging around and his repertoire not playing so well in the bullpen, he wasn't a good fit.

Maybe there was some off-the-field incident where Yusmeiro kept like stealing other people's grocery carts at the store, and it was annoying, but more likely this is the result of a simple roster crunch. The M's could've elected to keep Petit around to pitch in Tacoma, but instead, they're setting him free and giving him the chance to land somewhere that presents a better opportunity at making the Majors. It's good for Youppi and doesn't really make much a difference for the M's, so, hey, whatever.