Poor John McGrath. Clearly, his pick of San Francisco in seven games Wednesday was way off – the Giants might win the World Series in three. As for the guys who picked Texas, Ryan Divish and I ….. yikes!

As for news around baseball, Ken Rosenthal at Foxsports.com reported the Seattle Mariners have interviewed former Phillies hitting coach Milt Thompson to fill the same role on Eric Wedge’s new coaching staff.

And here’s a note of interest: since the announcement of  his hiring 11 days ago, Mr. Wedge hasn’t left the Northwest. Rather than go home, he’s stayed on to conduct coaching …

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Two former Seattle Mariners who found key roles in Philadelphia – Jamie Moyer and Greg Dobbs – have elected to become free agents.

Moyer was traded to the Phillies in 2006, when the Mariners were certain he was all but done, and since then he’s won 52 games and now has 267 in his career. After going 9-9 with a 4.84 earned run average last season and having his year shortened by injury, the 47-year-old lefty is pitching winter ball to prove he’s healthy. Yes, he’ll be looking for a  job this spring.

Bet he lands one.

As for Dobbs, …

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Just as Cliff Lee was being proven mortal – and that low-scoring San Francisco offense was putting up 11 runs to win Game 1 of the World Series  - baseball was going about its business off the field, too.

Back in New York, where Sandy Alderson is about to be announced as the new general manager for the Mets, the tabloid Post said not one but two former Seattle Mariners managers were contenders for the managerial job there. Bob Melvin and Don Wakamatsu are thought to be on Alderson’s list and New York newspapers are never wrong.

Everett’s Kirby …

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The pain of the Texas Rangers making it to the World Series just spread a little deeper into Seattle Marinerland.

Yes, Cliff Lee will start Game 1 against the San Francisco Giants tonight, but when the Rangers turned in their final World Series roster today, they’d added another familiar name – Mark Lowe.

Lee, Lowe and cash – yes, the Mariners sent Texas $2.25 million - went to the Rangers in exchange for first baseman Justin Smoak and pitchers Blake Beavan and Josh Lueke and second baseman Matt Lawson in July. Now, Lee and Lowe are in the World Series. Ouch.

For anyone who knew …

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Hard not to think about the start of the World Series tonight and laugh about Tim Lincecum.

Here’s a kid in his fourth big-league season who won the National League Cy Young Award twice and now – in an ‘off year’ – will pitch Game 1 of the World Series. Life isn’t supposed to look that easy. What a ride.

It’s Lincecum’s San Francisco Giants vs. Josh Hamilton’s Texas Rangers if you heed the hype, though Cliff Lee likely will have much to do with the outcome. Hamilton’s storyline, though, is made for network television. Lee? His bloodless passion for the …

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The Seattle Mariners were supposed to be the San Franciso Giants of the American League in 2010 – a team built around its pitching that scored just enough to pile up those low-scoring wins and knew how to play the game.

Certainlny, that’s what Jack Zduriencik tried to build, but mistakes doomed the Mariners long before spring training began. They weren’t just moves that didn’t work, they were poor decisions about what players could do. And when they couldn’t do them, a manager and coaching staff praised for its work in ’09 was blamed for not getting the most from its …

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Hard to believe we won’t be listening to someone going on and on about New York’s tradition and committment to winning Wednesday night, when World Series XXLMNOP begins – and features Texas and San Francisco.

Give most any general manager in baseball a $210 million budget – without the fear of his team losing money! – and chances are he could put together a pretty competitive team.

But the Rangers and Giants are the teams the network must now pitch to the American viewing public, and they could wind up with a compelling Fall Classic. Cliff Lee vs. Tim Linncecum …

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The Seattle Mariners need offense, and after that, a little more offense.

Had they had a big-league attack in 2010, who knows, they might actually have made a run at Texas – especially if they’d been in position to keep Cliff Lee beyond early July.  As they head into the off-season, the Mariners are facing the grim reality of a budget that simply won’t allow them to pursue the biggest bats available through free agency.

As big a problem? Two teams ahead of them in the American League West, Texas and Los Angeles, can afford to add.

The Angels, in …

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