In what equipment manager Steve Vucinich, a 46-year employee of the A’s, described as a first, the A’s and Mariners had to shower together in the Raiders’ second-floor locker room after today’s 10-2 Oakland win. Players from both teams trudged up and down one stairway in towels and shower shoes as both teams tried to get their flights out of town.

“It’s an unfortunate situation,” A’s third baseman Josh Donaldson said.

“Kind of a weird thing,” Oakland catcher John Jaso ...

Brandon Bantz the way.

Informed by the video board of Bantz’s baptismal at-bat Saturday, the Safeco Field crowd greeted him with a standing ovation that almost certainly set a baseball record for Longest Applause Given to an Obscure Minor Leaguer.

“It brought chills to my body,” said the catcher, whose longtime fantasy of a big league debut never broached the possibility he would be embraced by a standing ovation.

“I really didn’t know what to do,” Bantz said. “I remember ...

A man barreled over his son trying to catch Kyle Seager’s historic grand slam ball at Wednesday’s Mariners game.

“He was crying because he was got hurt, he fell down the steps,” said Zac Wilch, who was at the game with his little league team.  Wilch caught the whole thing. He picked up the ball and handed it to the boy.

“It felt like the right thing to do,” said Wilch.

Cracking open a Bay window on a nice June evening.

It’s June 3, and Jason Bay is starting again tonight for the Mariners. He brings in just a .231 batting average, but his on-base percentage is more than a hundred points higher than that, and his slugging percentage is right there with Michael Morse’s and Kyle Seager’s. Through the first third of the season, Bay’s been a contributor, and a year ago he was a pile of crap. He cost the Mariners little to bring in, his placement on the ...

Ack–Ack…INCOMING!

Dustin Ackley was a college star at North Carolina and the No. 2 overall pick in the 2009 draft, one spot after Stephen Strasburg. He moved quickly through the Mariners’ farm system, had a solid rookie season in 2011 at age 23 … and has hit .221 with a .600 OPS in 198 games since then.

Yesterday the Mariners demoted him to Triple-A and in discussing the move afterward manager Eric Wedge more or less blamed sabermetrics for Ackley’s struggles. Seriously, via Greg ...

Is Dustin Ackley the biggest Dustin bust since Dustydust?

Franklin, a 22-year-old switch hitter, was batting .324/.440/.472 with nine doubles, four homers, 20 RBI, 28 runs and seven stolen bases for Triple-A Tacoma. He now has 103 games in Triple-A after 79 in Double-A, so he should have enough seasoning to be ready for the bigs. He was drafted in the first round (27th overall) out of high school in 2009 by the Mariners and entered the season ranked as the 79th-best prospect in baseball by ...

Amen amen there’s a lower power.

Bold move in Seattle, as the Mariners are optioning catcher Jesus Montero to Triple-A Tacoma, reports Ryan Divish of the Tacoma News-Tribune.

Montero, whom the M’s acquired from the Yankees as part of the Michael Pineda deal, was ranked by Baseball America as the sixth-best overall prospect coming into 2012. This season, however, Montero has authored a grim batting line of .208/.264/.327 in addition to playing spotty defense in his 225 1/3 innings behind the ...

Chace’s Pancake Corral, for real. (NYT backgrounder on the star who stayed)

Seems our favorite M, who dazzles us with the K, makes it a point to visit the Pancake Corral a couple of times a week, in fact, whenever the team’s in town.

“Yes, he comes in with wife and cute little boy and he always has the strawberry waffle with bacon and eggs and orange juice,” says owner Jane Zakskorn, whose dad, William Chace, now deceased, opened the cozy little breakfast and lunch joint 55 years ago ...

The Yankees couldn’t solve Seattle’s ace—a common cause celebre among American League teams—but they took advantage of his early exit. Hernandez left with a two-run lead after six innings, and the Yankees used a key seventh-inning rally to earn a 4-3 victory over the Mariners.

Granderson went hitless in the victory, his first game after starting the season on the disabled list.

The Yanks looked like they were destined to lose until Felix went out with back tightness. Wedge said after the ...

Jeff Sullivan enjoys his semi-retirement with some thoughtful musings on the maturation of Prince Felix into King Felix:

There are throwers, and there are pitchers. Felix has been amazing as both of them.

This is all to set up just a few factoids. The following, courtesy of Baseball Info Solutions, won’t take you by surprise:

2005: 96mph average fastball
2013: 91mph average fastball

Every so often Felix used to rush it up there in or near the triple digits. Somewhat alarmingly, now I feel ...

just alright.

The larger point of course is that Jesus Montero probably isn’t a catcher at all, and thus it doesn’t matter if his bat may compare well with Wilson Ramos’ or even Miguel Montero’s. Catchers generate so much value because of their scarcity; this makes Montero’s 123 wRC+ elite. But give the same hitting stats to a 1B, and he’s barely above average (Paul Goldschmidt’s 123 and position got him 2.8 WAR last year). Add in the base-running penalty because, well, you know, ...

While Hernandez has been one of the best pitchers in baseball for several years, it’s premature to say he’s on his way to the Hall of Fame.

According to baseball-reference.com, the pitchers with the most comparable statistics through their Age 26 season (Felix’s age last year) are: Larry Dierker, Dennis Eckersley, Greg Maddux, Frank Tanana, Bret Saberhagen, Joe Coleman, Ken Holtzman, Milt Pappas, Mike Witt, and Catfish Hunter.

Eckersley and Hunter are in the Hall of Fame — although ...

It can’t all be Brendan Ryan’s OPS+ of *6*!

My sense is that the guys in charge needed a non-embarrassing season to keep their jobs, to keep organizational faith in the process, and show that there were positive steps in the right direction, even if those steps didn’t result in a winning season just yet. They needed Jesus Montero, Dustin Ackley, and Justin Smoak to hit. They needed Taijuan Walker, Danny Hultzen, and James Paxton to pitch well enough in the minors to justify the hype. They ...

AL SO/9 is now up to 7.6. Ho-hum…K’s are becoming the HR’s of the 90’s.

The Detroit Tigers needed 14 innings, 19 strikeouts, eight pitchers and ended the game by throwing out a runner at the plate, all in order to beat the Seattle Mariners 2-1. The two teams combined for 40 strikeouts (Mariners 19, Tigers 21), the second-highest single game total of all time.

Neither starting pitcher was eligible for a decision, but Max Scherzer and Felix Hernandez deserved better. Scherzer and Hernandez ...

“You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.”

“You know, this game has so many ups and downs, the only way to survive is to be humble,” he said. “You take the good with the bad, and the big thing I’ve learned over the years is to just enjoy it; enjoy the game, enjoy what it brings you. Because when it’s said and done, you’re going to have a lot of great memories.”

I haven’t seen an Edgar treated this badly since Edgar Buchanan in “Framed”!

The next year Edgar won the PCL batting championship (.363) and got another September call-up. In 1989, he actually made the team out of spring training but was still seen as a backup to Jim Presley, who hit 28 home runs in 1985, and was seen as the third baseman of the future. But ’85 was Presley’s high-water mark and the M’s finally traded him in January 1990. But even then, the club didn’t know what it had ...

“I’ve thought about writing this post a bunch of times before. I thought about writing this post when I interviewed for a job with a baseball team. I thought about writing this post when I interviewed for what turned out not to be a job with a baseball team. I thought about writing this post when I applied for a job with an area brewery. I thought about writing this post during ordinary downtime, and I thought about writing this post during my most stressful, latest nights. I always figured ...

Fermin had, of course, already been traded for a future Hall of Famer…

Yes, general manager Brian Cashman said, the unthinkable nearly happened.

It was spring training 1996, and the Yankees weren’t sure what they had at shortstop.

“We were going to go with the young shortstop that turned out to be Derek Jeter,” Cashman said Saturday. “Derek wasn’t having a good spring training.”

Cashman said there were some people in George Steinbrenner’s “circle” who raised concerns about ...

For Figgins, life begins again at 35, if .000/.154/.000 in 14 spring training PAs is “life.”

Until this year, he spent his entire career in the American League.

“In the AL you’re limited,” he says. “They don’t pinch-hit much, and if they do, it’s usually somebody who might hit a homer.”

Figgins never had much power, but in his prime the switch-hitter contributed in many other ways during eight seasons with the Angels.

His production began to decline after he signed a $36 ...

Only Griffey was young (how Burns was able to pry a 22-year-old Ken Griffey away from the Mariners is a mystery). Other than him, only Canseco and Clemens could still have been considered in their prime. That’s a very old infield. Most of the players had strong 1991 seasons, so you can understand their appeal to Burns, but buying a year late is a common problem in baseball. Heading into the season, the team had no depth. Most glaringly, there was but one pitcher with big league experience, ...

Print up the World Series tickets!!

The Red Sox have added to their pool of potential first basemen/outfielders, acquiring Mike Carp from the Mariners in exchange for a player to be named and/or cash.

According to a major league source, the Sox are not expected to part with a prospect of significance in the deal. Because Carp is out of options and requires a spot on the 40-man roster, his trade market was somewhat limited after the Mariners designated him for assignment last week. Carp is ...

After today’s workout, I asked Wedge whether anything could happen between now and Opening Day that could change his mind about Smoak at first base and Kendrys Morales as the DH.
“It would have to be something drastic,” he said.

(runs frigid digit down Chez Raoul de la Perlimpinpin’s guest list for D’Arnaud and Zunino)

PROJECTION

D’Arnaud: D’Arnaud projects as a long-term everyday catcher with impressive receiving and leadership skills and adequate ability against baserunners. He’s expected to hit for above-average power, but his OBP may be very dependent on his batting average, given his indifferent walk rates. He is a career .286/.343/.474 hitter in the minors, and his peak major league numbers could be very much ...

Now, about Ellie Howard…

In Eric Wedge’s estimation, Jesus Montero’s running has made progress. In Eric Wedge’s estimation, Jesus Montero’s running isn’t yet where the team would like it to be. Thus, we may conclude that Jesus Montero almost knows how to run.

Which is good, in that it represents a step forward. But it’s progress in something that’s kind of humiliating to have to be working on in the first place. It’s something so fundamental, as if the Mariners had to have a player spend the ...

A little-known aspect of the CBA — the market-disqualification program — is helping force a select group of teams to operate more competitively than they did in the past.

The way the program works, revenue-sharing proceeds for teams in the 15 largest markets will decline by set percentages over the next three years, and disappear entirely by 2016.

Teams that previously received such funds — Toronto, Atlanta and Washington, among them — had little incentive to field better clubs. Why ...