Mariners Moose Tracks, 7/11/22: All-Star selections, Carlos Santana, Andrew Benintendi trade talks, Kraken draft

Happy 7/11 day! Annoyingly 7-11 now makes you register on an app to get the free Slurpee, but if you’re okay with giving up a little bit more of your precious personal data, head on down to your local 7/11 for a free small Slurpee. If you get the mystery flavor, give us your best guess in the comments.

I’m back after taking the weekend off to celebrate a friend’s wedding in the San Juans, where I was both in spotty cell reception-land and in a town that rolls up its sidewalks at eight p.m., but big shoutout to Haley’s Sports Bar and Grill in Friday Harbor for giving us a place to watch the end of the Mariners game on Saturday. Sitting around with the bartender and our server (both of whom appropriately stopped what they were doing to hand out high fives after Santana’s home run) as well as a handful of Friday Harbor’s night owls cheering on the Mariners was a reminder of how much fun this region can be when the team is playing well.

In Mariners news:

• You’ve probably already heard that Ty France is not an All-Star, which is such a giant pile of garbage it qualifies as a Superfund site, but on the flip side, Julio is, and that is awesome. I watched the MLB Network shows last night and not only did Julio have the #1 play in the Plays of the Week show—spoiler alert, it was his towering home run in San Diego—he got a lot of love on Quick Pitch for his All-Star selection and generally had his beautiful beatific smiling face all over MLBN. It ruled. Here is the full list of this year’s All-Stars with an explainer on how the teams were selected, in case you need a refresher, from our pals at True Blue LA.
• Having had the pleasure to speak with Hyphen several times over the years, he is genuinely one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. However he does have that fiery Aussie in him (he’s got that dingo in him?) and I expect it to be on full display during this radio spot. Listen and see if Ryan costs the station anything in FCC fines:

• Carlos Santana, Glue Guy:

• If you aren’t a regular reader of the Midshipman’s Logs (hurtful!), here’s more evidence that Noelvi Marte is seemingly finding his footing in Everett at last. Does the hotter weather correlate with Noelvi’s hotter bat? Stay tuned.

Around the League:

• In former Mariners news: Atlanta has acquired Robinson Canó on a minor-league deal in exchange for cash considerations. We cannot verify the rumor that said cash considerations came from Canó himself after googling “minor league teams least embarrassing uniforms.”
• Do you love an All-Star Game storyline for the broadcasting team to beat to death? Yeah, me neither, but this one is pretty cool: William and Willson Contreras will be the first brothers to start on the same team in an All-Star Game since the Alomar brothers did it in 1992. Not bad company to be in.
• #4 Astros prospect Forrest Whitley left his start in Sugar Land yesterday after just two innings with shoulder inflammation. It’s troubling news for Whitley, who missed all of 2021 with TJ and also had a similar shoulder inflammation problem in 2019.
• Trade talk: per the New York Post, the Yankees are sniffing around the idea of replacing the floundering Joey Gallo with Andrew Benintendi. Lone Star Ball suggested re-acquiring Gallo might not be a bad idea for the Rangers. Also the Padres are mixed up in there because A.J. Preller is like the bus in Speed but instead of miles per hour it’s player acquisitions per hour.

Kate’s pick:

Our friends at Davy Jones’ Locker Room wrote up the Kraken draft class for you so you can pick out your favorite player and start saving up for their [flipping furiously through Hockey for Baseball People dictionary] jersey sweater. After reading the write-up and considering the highlights, before realizing I know nothing about hockey, I am picking Jagger Firkus, but only if I get to put the whole name on the jersey.