Mariners Moose Tracks, 4/5/20: minor league grinders, baseball on the surface of the sun?, ice cream

Hello and happy...Sunday? Yes, Sunday. First and foremost, hats off to those of you who knew exactly what day of the week it was because you’re essential workers still going in, including our own Zach Gottschalk on staff. (Everyone send some love to Gotty the Great please. What I wouldn’t give to read one of his recaps right now.) For the rest of us, it’s Sunday! My life now revolves around what I plan to eat on any given day. Today I’m making pancakes for brunch and a pork roast with tequila-citrus sauce for dinner and yes I have been thinking about that plan for three solid days. Finally, the recipes I have been collecting for years and storing in a large expandable file all have their day in the sun! Let’s let even more light in with these links.

In Mariners news:

• Today’s Mariners minor league grinder update: DSL catcher Ortwin Pieternella

• If you’re a player yourself or know someone who could use this, hitting coach Jarret DeHart (spoken about as a “mastermind” by many Mariners players) is offering video analysis for hitters in exchange for a donation to Mariners Care:

• Tim Lopes’s wife Amber has a flower cart (Loveleigh Day Flowers) and has been using it to deliver flowers to frontline workers. If you’re interested in donating to the fund to send cheery bouquets for healthcare workers in southern California, send her a DM on Instagram or check out her website.

Around the league:

• Justin Verlander is donating whatever MLB pays his during the shutdown to coronavirus relief efforts. So that’s one point for Verlander.
• The Texas Rangers announced a group of top execs will take a 20% pay cut, which will be temporarily redistributed to help avoid layoffs and furloughs in the organization.
• The possibility that baseball could return, albeit in empty stadiums, is still very much on the table. Ken Rosenthal writes at the Athletic about the challenges facing such a plan; meanwhile, someone from Bartsool says he’s “hearing” that MLB is “zeroing in” on playing the season at Spring Training sites in Arizona, with July 1st as a target date. In related news, I am zeroing in on the “sure, Jan” gif.
• The MLBPA will distribute money from MLB’s settlement with the players to any non-roster player with at least one day of MLB service time on a tiered scale, meaning veteran players who got MiLB invites and were hoping to make a club will be included in the payout.

In Seattle news:

• If you read only one Twitter thread today (and you should probably cap it at that), make it this one about an email where Canlis forgot to BCC the entire mailing list...and then something wonderful happened.
• Raise your hand if you feel this too:

Also, if you want to understand more about the drastic toilet paper shortage [pause to add to journal labeled “sentences I never thought I’d write”], our benevolent Vox overlords have a pretty good explainer on why it’s not just a hoarding problem.

Kate’s pick:

There was some hot debate over this in the LL slack, with Matthew immediately declaring himself a 13, aka Fancy Stawberry Boi. Grant is unsurprisingly an ice cream cookie, Connor is the classic shaved ice (although with green not blue, what?), and John was mad there was no Choco Taco. Oh, John. (Myself, I favor the classics: 33, aka La Bomb Pop.)