Dan Cortes Up, Aaron Laffey Down

Over ten appearances with the Tacoma Rainiers in the month of July, Dan Cortes has thrown 11 innings, with 14 walks and ten strikeouts. What does that say to the Mariners? Promotion!

The #Mariners will call up Dan Cortes tomorrow and will send down Aaron Laffey

Obviously there's nothing official yet, but there's no reason to believe that Ryan Divish got the wrong information. This move should be announced sometime in the morning, before the Saturday matinee.

Why is Cortes coming up? Maybe there's something about his recent performance I'm not seeing. He did have 16 strikeouts and five walks in June. Maybe the Mariners really like his fastball. Or maybe Cortes is just the easiest guy to bring up, and this is more about Laffey going down.

And why would Laffey be going down? There's his Friday performance, for one thing. As Eric Wedge said:

"Aaron really struggled today," Wedge said. "I mean, he just really didn't have anything going. His command wasn't quite as aggressive as it needs to be, and it just looked like he caught up in it a little bit."

Laffey allowed six baserunners over 1.2 innings, with a home run. And this isn't the first time he's struggled. Three of his last four outings have been terrible, with nine runs and three homers in six innings. Maybe the team wants him to back off. Maybe the team wants him to work some things out. Maybe the team just doesn't want to see him for a little.

Or, hell, maybe the team wants to try to stretch him out as a starter. It seems unlikely, but it's a possibility, and Laffey has plenty of starting experience. It's not like Luke French or Nate Robertson are providing much in the way of possible depth. Laffey's got a lower upside as a starter than a napkin on the floor, but the front office saw something in him when the traded for him, so maybe they see something in him now. I don't know. I don't know a lot of things.

What this move does do, at least for the time being, is leave the Mariners bullpen without a lefty. That's the kind of thing I might worry about if the team were anywhere close to the race. As is, I don't care, and the roster could change so quickly over the next few days that who knows where we are on Monday or Tuesday. I'm excited to find out, but I'm sure as hell not going to try to make any predictions.

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