Curses be to these dastardly Nationals.  It wasn't enough for them to strategically out-fail the Mariners, now they've gone and poached our beloved interim manager and made him their bench coach.

WASHINGTON -- Former major league manager Jim Riggleman and former players Marquis Grissom and Pat Listach are joining the Washington Nationals' coaching staff.

Riggleman is Washington's new bench coach, Grissom is the first-base coach, and Listach the third-base coach. Rick Eckstein, older brother of 2006 World Series MVP David Eckstein, will be the hitting coach, and Randy Knorr the bullpen coach.

Friday's hirings replace five members of manager Manny Acta's staff who were fired on the last day of the regular season. The Nationals went 59-102, the worst record in the majors.

Pitching coach Randy St. Claire remains on the staff.

Ladies and gentlemen, witness a legend in the making:

B.J. Upton, benched three times in the past two weeks for failing to hustle, was caught jogging on the bases again Monday night and thrown out at second on what should have been a routine double.

This time, Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon left his center fielder in the game after his latest base running gaffe.

The speedy Upton hit a fourth-inning drive to left against the Los Angeles Angels and broke into a trot out of the batter’s box, apparently thinking it would be a home run. Instead, the ball hit the fence on a hop.

Upton casually rounded first and jogged toward second with Angels first baseman Mark Teixeira following up the line to meet left fielder Juan Rivera’s throw to an uncovered base. Teixeira fielded the ball on a hop and made the tag just before a surprised Upton touched the bag.

With the inning over, Upton dropped his head and bent over at second base for a few moments before taking his position on defense.

Trust me when I say that this description does not do justice to just how unbelievably atrocious Upton was on the play.  I consider it to be one of the two or three laziest, most inexcusably [facepalm] moments I have ever witnessed at any level of baseball, including my old Little League team.  Also, one of the most hilarious.  Please find a way to catch a clip of this (it'll be all over ESPN tonight, and probably on MLB.com too).  Do it for me.

Someday grizzled old grandparents will bounce their grandkids on their knee and regale them with stories about B.J. Upton, the Laziest Man of All Time.  It's actually beautiful in a way: he's taking on a mythic aspect, becoming a bizarro John Henry, a monument to awesomely hilarious indolence.  As I said in another thread, someday we will be telling Aesopian fables about Upton, along the lines of "The Ant and the Grasshopper," except that the grasshopper will be Upton and the ant will be Willie Ballgame.

[I was going to entitle this "Baker: Burn The Tree!" but even though the joke is funny, I don't want to attract that weirdo here under a new pseudonym.]

Anyway, Baker's had enough, saying that more and more it seems to him like the team ought to be stripped for parts like a car abandoned south of 62nd Street in Chicago.  The dilemma he correctly points out, however, is that the Mariners ownership/FO is so inept and inert that any rebuilding process is going to move at a glacial pace.

A few weeks ago, I was convinced this was just a one-year happening...[a]dd a few good hitters, I figured, and you could clean the mess up by next season and take another shot at contending.

Now, I'm not so sure. And judging by the actions -- or lack of action other than yelling and screaming -- by the team's ownership and management, I don't think they are too sure either. The Mariners seem to be an organization paralyzed by indecision.

[...]

It's never easy for any organization to "blow it up''. The only folks who find that an easy route are fans looking for an outlet through which to vent anger. I understand that. But it's no way to run a baseball team. Blowing up the Mariners means, at minimum, waiting another three years before contending again. Hoping for something quicker is akin to fooling yourselves. Billy Beane isn't taking over this team tomorrow. Whoever is running the show in 2009 will be hard-pressed to contend before 2012 if he or she "blows it up". Get it straight. Get it right. Do not delude yourselves, please.

Read the article for his musings on the incomprehensibility of the Johjima re-signing, and his frustration at the opaqueness of Armstrong and Lincoln's "leadership." Morrow and Dickey are labelled as the only two people on the roster who haven't in some way contributed to this disaster of a season so far:

Some of you keep asking for names. I've given you pages full of them these past few weeks. You can more or less take anybody on that roster save for Brandon Morrow and R.A. Dickey and make a case for how they've contributed to this team's losing. Yes, even some of your favorite players. Frankly, I don't see anybody on this roster who isn't expendable. Yes, I did just write that. Obviously, they can't all go. But some will have to.

God our team sucks.  I've been joking over the last few weeks about how I still enjoy watching them because I'm a masochist, but I'm moving beyond that phase at this point.  Anyway, read the whole entry; I've only excerpted a tiny amount.

Oh dear.

Seattle PI 

Shortstop Carlos Triunfel, considered by some to be the best player in the Seattle minor league system, is serving an indefinite suspension and is not currently on the roster of the Mariners’ High Desert team in the California League.

Mariner director of player development Greg Hunter confirmed Monday that Triunfel has been suspended for a violation of team rules and has been sent back to the Mariners’ minor league complex in Peoria, Ariz. to serve out the duration of the suspension.

The Mariners aren’t saying just what rules were broken, but this suspension has already lasted nine days, so it’s apparently not a minor thing.

Triunfel, an 18-year-old signed out of Venezuela, hasn’t played in a game since May 10 and Hunter said there was no set date for the suspension to be lifted.

The Mitchell investigation, sham though it pretty much is, has received a bunch of names from Kirk Radomski.  The current leaks - first, Ankiel, now Glaus, who knows who next? - seem to be at least partially related to that.  I have the sense that sports reporters have been sitting on all sorts of rumors that are now being finally reported.  

My question: what if they're all on the juice?  

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Scoreboard watching while we impatiently wait for the last game of the day.

Tigers lead the Yanks 3-1 in the top of 2nd. Tigers starter has left with shoulder problems, and Durbin's now in.

Curtis Granderson led off the game with an Ichiro-like inside-the-park home run.  The guy is pretty relentless, however much of a pest to the M's he's been.  He also happens to be a real likable guy, so I'm actually happy to see him have a breakout season this year.

Fourth verse, same as the first! (Hopefully).  Halos up 2-0 in the 1st with the Sox running out their own spasming corpse to the mound in the undead-looking Julian Tavarez.  

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