As the MLB trade deadline passed this afternoon, Seattlest was warmed by the cozy, reassuring feeling we get this time of year when the Mariners steadfastly refuse to buckle under pressure (logic?) and break up our boys of summer via trade. Doing nothing trade-wise has become a summertime tradition here dating back to the "Stand Pat" era of Pat Gillick right on through to today. (Sorry, Arthur Rhodes for a case of Vanilla Ice CDs......

The cost of fielding a perennially bad team may finally start hitting the Mariners in the bank account next season. The P-I is reporting that the M's will move to KIRO-AM next year in a $5.5 million per year deal for three seasons. This season, at KOMO-AM, the M's are earning $10 million in radio revenue. The huge reduction in radio revenue can be attributed to lower ratings, due to the team's poor performance as......

Our Mariners begin the second half of the 2008 season hoping to avoid the history books. No team in history has lost 100 games in a season while fielding a team with a payroll over $100 million. (For that kind of cash, we could buy TWO hoops teams.) The highlight of the season thus far (as Seattlest David reminds us) is that no one has been run-over by a train outside the stadium. And when......

WFAN-AM in New York is reporting that former Mariner first baseman Richie Sexson has been signed by the New York Yankees. Since Sexson cleared waivers after his release last week, the Mariners will be responsible for the majority of his Yankee salary for the remainder of the year. So not only do the Mariners overpay their own underperforming players, they are now paying for guys to sit on the Yankees' bench. Makes sense to us.......

Photo courtesy of Seattlest flickr pool contributor slightlynorth. After watching the M's go 2-9 in the past week and a half, King Felix has apparently decided to take matters into his own hands, becoming the first AL pitcher to hit a grand slam in three decades. While Seattlest hoped this was a divine omen of better weeks ahead for the team, our hopes were almost immediately dashed. Hernandez had to leave the game after......

KING 5 and the AP are reporting the M's have fired much-debated General Manager Bill Bavasi. Apparently, the booing worked. Bavasi has been replaced by Lee Pelekoudas, who will be acting on an interim basis, while a GM search is conducted. Under Bavasi this season, the Mariners were the worst team in baseball with a 24-45 record. Last weekend, the M's were swept at home by the second-worst team in the majors, the Washington......

Our beloved boys of summer (?) return to the friendly confines of RoBro after a 3-3 road trip to Boston and Toronto, cementing them firmly in last place in the AL West—16.5 games behind the Angels. It was a busy week for the M's, one which featured a star pitcher's arm falling off, while King Felix threw two gems, yielding only one unearned run in 14 innings pitched. The team was busy off the......

After yet another Mariners loss—and the final game of a three-game sweep by the Angels—manager John McLaren finally had a bit of a meltdown in his news conference yesterday: We're playing our (bleep) off every day and got nothing to show for it. I'm tired of (bleeping) losing, I'm tired of getting my (bleep) beat, and so have those guys. We gotta change this (bleeping bleep) around and get after it. And only we......

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that you perform badly at your job this year. Not just sort-of badly, but worse than any person in the history of your company. In fact, you have one of the thirteen worst performances in the history of your industry. Would you expect a raise? What about a $100,000 raise? And, again, for the sake of argument, let's say you got that raise. How motivated would you......

You may not agree with his conservative politics, but if you like the Mariners, you owe an elaborate tip of the cap to ex-U.S. Senator Slade Gorton. Gorton, who was state Attorney General from 1969-1981, then a two-term U.S. Senator, and served on the 9/11 Commission, is almost solely responsible for the Mariners being here, and now he's agreed to help the city keep the Sonics. "We're lawyering up," deputy mayor Tim Ceis told the......

So, the Seattle P-I restaurant critic writes that "Safeco's got some of the worst food in the major leagues." That statement struck a nerve with this Seattlest, as we tend to think that Safeco has some of the best food in MLB parks. The variety and quality of food you can get at Safeco just cannot be matched by very many stadiums around the country. Just a sample of what you can get:Dixie's BBQ -......

Vitals: Carsten Charles Sabathia, 26 yo LHP. Born in Vallejo, California. 6-7, 290. 87-57, 3.94 career. 6-1, 3.65 in 2007. $8.75 million salary. Arsenal: A 92-93 mph fastball with wicked movement that he can amp up to 96 when he needs it. Lefties must look for a sharp breaking slurve, while righties must look for the slurve and a straight change. Recent Battles: Sabathia faced the Mariners once last year, he went eight innings and......

Vitals: 26 yo RHP. Born in New Castle, PA. 6-0, 170. 0-0, 1.29 this year (he's a rookie). Arsenal: DeSalvo told Baseball America in 2005: “I throw seven different pitches: a four-seamer, a two-seamer, a cutter, the [knuckle] curve, a slider, a forkball, and a change. Having a lot of pitches gives me backup options." His fastball is low 90s. Recent Battles: Last Monday, in his first major league start, DeSalvo allowed a double to......

The two winningest Mariner pitchers ever, Jamie Moyer and Randy Johnson, start against each other today. Moyer had 145 wins as a Mariner, Johnson had 130. Combined, the two pitched 3932 innings as Mariners. They've faced each other once before--in Texas, 18 years ago. On Thursday, September 21, 1989, while the Berlin Wall was still up, Ed Koch was mayor of New York, and Samuel Beckett was alive, 26-year-old Moyer, then a back-of-the-rotation starter for......

Vitals: 26 yo RHP. Born in Tokyo, Japan. 6-0, 187. 94-45, 2.99 in Japan. 3-2, 4.36 here. $6.3 million salary. Arsenal: Dice-K throws six pitches--three fastballs: a mid 90s four-seamer (rides high), a low 90s two-seamer (moves down), and a cut fastball that moves away from righties, and three off-speed pitches: a slow 11-7 curveball. a mid-80s slider that he tries to back-door lefties with to strike them out, and his change-up, which is considered......

Vitals: 22 yo LHP. Born in Austin, TX. 6-1, 200. 0-3, 5.32 career and 2007 (he's a rookie). Acquired via trade from Texas (Brandon McCarthy) before this season. $380,000 salary. Arsenal: Same was Barry Zito's. He's got a 88-91 fastball, a 80 mph change that he appears to locate well (and likes to use with two strikes) and a big looping curve--which, from what I've seen, isn't as big and looping as Zito's is. Recent......

Vitals: 30 yo RHP. Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. 6-1, 210. 102-105, 4.34 career. 2-0, 3.75 this year. Acquired via trade in 2005. $13 million salary. Arsenal: Four pitches. A fastball from 89-94, a slider, a curve that he throws mostly against RHB, and a splitter that he throws lots against LHB (especially when he's behind in count). Recent Battles: Vazquez stymied the M's in two starts last season...well, 1.9 starts. In a must-win game......

Vitals: 40 year old RHP. Born in Melbourne, FL. 6-2, 204 lb. 151-135, 4.21 career. 0-1, 1.50 this year. Signed as a free agent in 1995. $4 million salary. Arsenal: Knuckleballs, almost exclusively. He'll only throw his low-80s fastball if he's ran to three balls on a hitter. He has a curve, but he almost never throws it. Recent Battles: Back when Josh Bard was still trying to catch Wakefield, the M's played him.......

Yet another postponement, and the new plan is to try to play a doubleheader on Monday, beginning at 10:05 am PST. The M's have a day game in Boston on Tuesday, so this would mean they'd play 3 games in about 28 hours. Not good. Even if they play both games on Monday, that leaves two games that will need to be played sometime during the season. The P-I's John Hickey has the scoop on......

Vitals: 36 years old, born in Louisville, signed as a free agent by the Indians in '05. 82-73 career record. $7 million salary. Arsenal: A below average (84-89mph) fastball. To lefties, he'll work up and away with the fastball, a 12/3 looping curveball and a change. To righties, he'll work low and away with the fastball and a slider. Recent Battles: Triumphant! The M's knocked Byrd around in his one start against them last year,......

Arsenal: Harden throws a mid-90s fastball, a tight-breaking curve and, his unhittable out pitch, a late-breaking splitter called the "ghost pitch" (because it seems to disappear) or the "spuckle" (because it breaks as dramatically as a knuckleball). Opponents bat .164 against this pitch. Pure nastiness. Recent Battles: Sherman through Georgia-esque. Harden only had two starts against the M's in 2006 (he was injured most of the year). In those starts, M's hitters were 5-41 with......

We're going to fiddle around with a few ways of covering the Mariners this year, starting with this: "Today's Target." Meaning the starting pitcher the M's are facing. Nothing affects a team's performance more than what the opposing pitcher gets up to, so we'll give you a couple of things to know in case you catch the game. Target: Dan Haren, righty. Arsenal: mid-90s fastball, hard slider, nasty, nasty split-finger. Recent Battles: Not good--Haren was......

According to ESPN, Seattle is the sports suffering epicenter of the world. We've endured our share of heartbreak as a Seattle sports fan--the Mutombo game, the 116-win season that flamed out, the Super Bowl stolen by the refs, Mike Jensen--but we always assumed that folks in other cities went through the same shit. But ESPN worked up a formula ("essentially, the formula is bad stuff minus good stuff divided by seasons without a title") and......

It was the spring of 1989, and Ken Griffey Jr., a 19-year-old with 61 at bats above A-ball, embarrassed Cactus League pitchers and made the Mariners. It is the spring of 2007, and Brandon Morrow, a 22-year-old who's thrown 16 innings professionally, is embarrassing Cactus League hitters and forcing himself into the M's bullpen mix. Morrow, the M's first round pick (5th overall) in last June's draft, has thrown 6.1 scoreless innings in four appearances......

--The bet is on - If the Bears win on Sunday Mayor Nickels will cough up some salmon and coffee to Chicago's Mayor Daley. If the Seahawks win Daley has promised not to kick his ass. --The Huffington Post found out about Federal Way's Inconvenient Young Earther who got the Al Gore film banned from schools down there. --Local online real estate site Redfin is teaming with local software manufacturer Microsoft for their new......

A Dallas police report indicates that Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens tried to kill himself last night. One of Owens' most notorious stunts, signing a football with a pen after he scored a touchdown, happened in the first year of Seahawks Stadium. Since then, the guy's been pilloried from coast to coast. We don't feel that it's particularly well-known, but one of Seattle's greatest athletes, Ken Griffey, Jr., also once attempted suicide. In January of 1988,......

In keeping with baseball superstition, we can only divulge that ex-Mariner Freddy Garcia is pitching VERY, VERY WELL today against the Angels. In fact, at writing he's only six outs away from a VERY, VERY INTERESTING pitching performance indeed. Get thee to MLB.com and listen to it, or watch their GameDay thing to follow the drama live. UPDATE: Adam Kennedy broke up the perfect game with two outs in the eighth on a line drive......

Local boys Travis Snider (OF-Jackson High of Mill Creek) and Tim Lincecum (P-UW) were both drafted in the first round of June's MLB draft. Thought we'd check in. Snider, drafted #14 overall by Toronto, is hitting .296 with 5 homers for Pulaski (VA) of the short-season Appalachian League. His second pro homer cleared a 23-foot-high fence and landed across the street from the stadium. To see Snider, you'll have to travel to Pulaski's Calfee Park,......

On Monday, Ichiro launched this confusing monologue at an MLB.com reporter about how the Mariners can improve: "If there is a problem, we need to notice what creates the problem. The problem usually isn't just on the cover. You need to look much deeper. For example, if we're talking about a tree and the tree has a problem, you need to look at the root. But you cannot see the root. The mistake is......

JJ Putz's two ninth-inning strikeouts of Barry Bonds (one Friday, looking at a splitter, one Sunday, swinging on a fastball) are the twin highlights of the Mariner season so far. Putz has been terrific this season--11 saves in 12 opportunities. Better yet, the numbers are there--he's struck out 46 this season, and walked only 6. That's Sasaki-esque. And then there's Joel Pineiro. Pineiro's allowed five earned runs or more in five of his last seven......