Mariners Moose Tracks, 8/12/23: King Félix, Fernando Valenzuela, and José Bautista

Good morning everyone and welcome to the weekend! Here’s what’s happening in baseball.

In Mariners news...

• In her latest blog post, Isabelle Minasian discussed the legacy of King Félix and the dark years he took us through.

Around the league...

• Kevin Brown returned to the Orioles’ booth yesterday, but prior to that he posted a lengthy statement that attempted to assuage the feelings of people who are angry at O’s ownership. The statement sure reads like something the PR team drafted for him, but I guess we’ll never know.
• The Rome Braves, the High-A affiliate of Atlanta, announced that they will be changing their team name for the 2024 season.
• In a recent interview with Pop Verse, Shohei Ohtani discussed his favorite manga and anime.
• That’s...almost unbelievable.

• José Bautista, who has not appeared in an MLB game since 2018, has officially retired.
• The Dodgers retired Fernando Valenzuela’s jersey No. 34 prior to yesterday’s game.
• Jon Singleton hit two homers in yesterday’s game for the Astros, marking the first time in eight years that he had even hit one homer in the big leagues.
• Chris Gilligan at Fangraphs wrote about the wild changes in playoff odds various teams in the sport have seen in the last month. The Mariners, believe it or not, are not the team that has seen the biggest improvement over that span.