I shall only gloat a little
First of all, I have made it to August! Now I can give birth. I spent Saturday morning contracting like mad, but everything settled down after a nap and Munchkin #2 has been rolling and hiccuping all weekend, so he’s obviously fine with the way things are. Second, the Lord is smiling on me today as the weather is about 15 degrees cooler than it was yesterday, giving me a chance to wash certain maternity shorts that needed it and to just relax, instead of sweating it out in front of the A/C unit.
This was a busy weekend for baseball, as the trading deadline came and went. The Mariners made a few trades, only one of which I regret. Randy Winn has been traded to the Giants, and I really wish we could have kept him. He actually produced in the batter’s box and was a decent outfielder (though we do seem to be outfielder-heavy at this point). I understand the reasoning behind the trade, but he was a good player and a team player and I hate to see him go.
Ron Villone has also been traded. Not a great loss in my book, as I didn’t find him to be a consistent relief pitcher. He went to the Marlins.
But the true cause of rejoicing is that Miguel Olivo, the perpeptual disappointment, has been traded to the Padres!!! Let us thank God and upper management for easing our pain. Yes, he hit a couple of home runs recently. That’s all he did recently, though. I don’t think he ever developed a good rapport with the starting pitchers, made good calls, or really did a good job behind the plate. I found him to be terribly mediocre. Admittedly, I’m used to seeing Dan Wilson work the plate so well that even rookie pitchers look like they know what they are doing against big-name sluggers.
Anyway, the team is picking up pitchers and catchers in these trades, with the catchers headed here immediately. Pat Borders has been designated for assignment – hopefully we can keep him in AAA Tacoma – and management has admitted that the “youth movement” is on. With the team currently 14 and a half games out of first, we’re not necessarily conceding that the season is over (but we would need “mojo” on the scale of 1995), but we definitely are building up for future years.
So long as Olivo isn’t a part of it, I can be happy.
In other baseball news, Rafael Palmerio has failed a steroid drug test and automatically gets a 10 day suspension. This is very bad for him, as he’s the first high-profile name to be caught under these new policies. What did you not understand about “zero tolerance,” man? He has no explanation for how it happened, either, which makes it worse. To screw up is one thing, to screw up and feel like you don’t owe the fans anything is like a slap in the face. He had better do something, or the boo-birds are going to find him wherever he goes, and a good career is going to go south very fast – and I don’t mean back to the Rangers.
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