Mariners Insider » 2008 Winter meetings

UPDATED (4:24) –No Ichiro in today’s line-up

Ryan Divish — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:18:27 +0000

UPDATE 4:24 — Officially Ichiro has tightness in his left calf. It’s been bothering him the last week and it “grabbed on him” a little at the end of yesterday’s game. Manager Don Wakamatsu said Ichiro said the calf is much better today. But Wakamatsu indicated that Ichiro probably won’t play till Wednesday.

UPDATE 3:29 – Apparently Ichiro has a strained calf. Not sure of the extent.

Ichiro Suzuki is not in the line-up today, Bill Hall will be taking his place in right field. Not sure what’s up with it, but I will let you

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GAME UPDATES: Rays vs. Mariners, August 8th

Ryan Divish — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:07:59 +0000

Not much to say. Ian Snell makes his Safeco debut and the Mariners face a pretty good pitcher in James Shields. In six career starts, Shields has a 1-2 record against the M’s, but he’s only allowed 8 runs in 37 innings pitched for a 1.95 ERA, his lowest against any AL opponent.

First Inning

Well, don’t be afraid to mix in a strike every once in a while. Snell looks a little pumped to be pitching at Safeco. He’s all over the place. He walked two of the first three hitters, then gave up an

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Mariners 2, Tigers 1 — Washburn speaks on the trade deadline

Ryan Divish — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:27:38 +0000

Well, I made my flight, after taking possibly one of the scariest, most expensive cab rides ever. I’m not certain, but I think I may have similar pain in my neck that Franklin Gutierrez is experiencing after my cab driver used his breaks in the jump on them with two feet method.

Anyway, a great win for the Mariners. It wasn’t pretty offensively. Manager Don Wakamatsu called it “scratch and claw.” I guess Mike Sweeney’s RBI double was “scratch” and Wlad Balentien’s RBI fielder’s choice “claw.”

It was enough for Washburn,

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Wakamatsu: Olson still going to start on Tuesday

Ryan Divish — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:53:20 +0000

Perhaps Don Wakamatsu is reading what the writers and the bloggers have posted on the possibility of Garrett Olson being replaced in his start on Tuesday in Detroit because that was the second thing he mentioned in the pregame meeting with him today.

“As of right now, we’re still planning on pitching Oly (Olson) on Tuesday,” he said in his second sentence.

He later said he and his staff hadn’t even considered pulling him.

“Right now, we haven’t even talked about it,” he said. “Obviously it happened

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Wak on Felix’s new delivery

Ryan Divish — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:06:27 +0000

The other day Jon Shields over at Proball NW, formerly Bleeding Blue & Teal, had a excellent and detailed post on the changing mechanics of Felix Hernandez, complete with video.

So we asked Manager Don Wakamatsu if he noticed these changes and here’s conversation about it.

“He’s done that at different times,” Wakamatsu said. “Early in the year, we were more concerned about it because he would turn and leak down the hill. Now he turns and comes back and is back and squared up. That’s fine if

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A moment of silence…

Ryan Divish — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:16:27 +0000

… for my laptop computer which appears to have expired after a few solid years of work. Because of that I could not post the links to Jim Riggleman to becoming the Nationals manager or my embarrassing appearance on Q it up Sports. This post is via blackberry.

Just a heads up that I will be doing a midseason Mariners roundtable with on KJR today with Ian Furness, Jason Puckett and possibly Steve Sandmeyer. Not sure of the time yet but it will be a few segments between 1-3.

Royal Reaction to the Betancourt trade

Ryan Divish — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:45:52 +0000

The Royals are in Boston and Yuni is presumably on his way there as well, longtime Royals beat writer Bob Dutton of the Kansas City has this story in which some of Betancourt’s former Mariners teammates now on the Royals – and there are plenty of them – seem happy about the deal.

But Royals fans? Well not so much. If you are looking for bitterness, anger, frustration, stunning disbelief and vitriol check out some of these links.

I went over to KC Star columnist Joe Posnanski’s personal blog — a must read. But

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UPDATED: Trade rumors swirl when Betancourt is a late scratch in Tacoma

Ryan Divish — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:36:25 +0000

UPDATE 10:36: OK, as far as I know, nothing has happened with Yuni on the trade front. Does that mean it isn’t being talked about? Not at all. In fact, I do think they are or were possibly close to a deal and that’s why he was pulled.

It wasn’t because of his hamstring. I asked him about it and he said, “I’m good, it feels good.”

Betancourt took part in batting practice, team fundamentals and infield.

“He did everything with us,” Rainiers manager Daren Brown said.

Brown said he got the call

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Trembley’s tirade on Tuesday

Ryan Divish — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:15:03 +0000

I mentioned last night that Orioles manager Dave Trembley had a second tantrum of sorts with the postgame media after the one pictured above. Obviously with the Orioles scuffling, he’s under a fair amount of criticism and heat, and it might have just came out last night.

Here’s Jeff Zrebiec’s story from the Baltimore Sun and Doug Miller’s story from mlb.com, but both writers told me you can’t really grasp how angry and how red Trembley’s face was during the postgame exchange.

Doug’s story has most of the

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Minor League Report: McOwen & Halman earn honors

Ryan Divish — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:13:09 +0000

Here’s a minor league report for perusing …

HALMAN & McOWEN NAMED PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

West Tenn OF Greg Halman (left)(Southern League) and High Desert OF James McOwen (right) have been named Player of the Week for June 29-July 5. Halman hit .333 (10×30) with 8 home runs. McOwen has extended his California League record hitting streak to 42 games after batting .545 (12×22) with 2 doubles, one triple, one home run and 7 RBI. The streak is the longest since Brandon Watson

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