A little housekeeping after a week of beach combing and chasing whales:
They keep hanging in there, don’t they?
Give the Mariners credit. They keep playing well enough to be in the middle of the AL West race, if only because the three other teams are playing badly enough to blow it.
The M’s, two games under .500 and 31/2 games out of the division lead going into Monday’s game at Baltimore, have won their past three series. That’s at home against the Red Sox, Blue Jays and on the road against the Indians. After three games against the Orioles, they come home for the A’s and Devil Rays.
So despite themselves, it’s the first of August, they’re still in the race and we’re not forced to watch the World Series of Darts on ESPN.
General manager Bill Bavasi didn’t pull the trigger on a major deadline trade, but neither did he fall into the Woodward-esque desperation of trading Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe for Heathcliffe Slocumb.
He did, however, make a necessary move that was, in effect, Carl Everett’s exit visa. Clearly, Everett’s best days ended years ago. His brief stay in Seattle was unproductive, the only excitement coming in an early-July meltdown in Mike Hargrove’s office with enough decibel thrust for reporters to hear.
From the Indians, the M’s got Ben Broussard and his frequent abuse of right-handed pitchers. Between him and Eduardo Perez, the M’s figure to get more consistent production out of the DH spot than they had with Everett.
The downside: Who doesn’t love saying “Shin-Soo Choo”?
In other words, Bavasi’s move did little on the national Richter scale, but in the AL West, who’s to say it wasn’t enough?
The major players in the division were the Rangers. Will they ignite a wild streak after getting Carlos Lee and Nelson Cruz from Milwaukee, Kip Wells from the Pirates, Luis Mendoza from the Red Sox and Matt Stairs from the Royals? Lee was a great get and Stairs still has some pop in his bat at age 38, but the Rangers did little to address their bullpen problems.
No one is talking about the Mariners, which may be in their favor. All season, they’ve benefited from being in a division with flawed teams. It won’t take much to win the AL West.
Maybe they did just enough.
*nn
In one week, the fastest human on two wheels and the fastest human on two feet find themselves in the news for excess testosterone.
That’s bad if you’re a high-level athlete, although it might be somewhat appealing for us mere mortals in our 40s.
Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tested positive for suspiciously high levels of testosterone and epitestosterone. The test occurred July 20, the night after Landis’ Stage 17 victory. Landis, predictably claiming innocence, has since requested a “B” sample, which, he says, will bear him out as a non-doper.
Justin Gatlin, the reigning Olympic champion who shares the world 100-meter record with Asafa Powell of Jamaica (9.77 seconds), claims a disgruntled masseuse rubbed testosterone cream into his legs, then skulked away.
Oh, by the way. Gatlin’s coach is Trevor Graham, a prominent link to BALCO. Nine of his current or former runners have tested positive for banned substances or have been charged with doping offenses. I’m as big an advocate of proving guilt as anyone, but I’m also a big believer in character.
I like what World Anti-Doping Agency head Richard Pound said on the BBC about big-time cycling last spring:
“The image of your sport and right now your flagship event (the Tour de France) is in the toilet and you’ve got to do something about it or the risk is your sport will be ignored by everybody, marginalized by others and it won’t be a sport anymore.”
He could have been talking about international track and field as well.
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