NOTICE: around 12:50 or so the entire network buckled under the weight of constant deadline-related page reloading. (So did Rotoworld. We're not special.) We've got people working on it, but we'll probably be up-and-down or at least a little laggy for a few hours. Bear with us.
Ichiro RF Roberts 2B Lopez 2B Fahey!! LF Beltre 3B Mora 3B Ibanez LF Tejada SS Sexson 1B Gibbons DH Perez DH Conine 1B Johjima C Patterson CF Betancourt SS Hernandez C Jones CF Markakis RF ---------- ----------
Meche (9-5, 4.19) Loewen (1-2, 6.50)
The deadline's behind us and the Mariners didn't do anything today (although not for lack of trying). Which is fine, because they've already made their moves, and nobody else in the division did anything of note, unless you count Matt Stairs and Kip Wells as impact acquisitions (Edit: uh, oh yeah, Carlos Lee. But whatever). The Mariners are every bit as good as anyone else in the AL West, and with two months to go, they stand a perfectly reasonable shot of finishing in first.
Big winner: Brian Cashman, who landed a pair of #5 bats and a back-of-the-rotation starter for nothing. Big loser: ...between Dave Littlefield and Pat Gillick, who got very little for good players, and Mike Flanagan/Peter Angelos, who got nothing at all, I don't know who to choose. Maybe Theo Epstein? I hope the Red Sox enjoy watching playoff baseball from home as much as I do.
Anyway, hey, a game!
LET'S GO MARINERS!