I keep hearing that the Expos weren’t even supposed to be here. The Reds were supposed to play the Mariners and the Expos the Indians (which makes sense, looking at the travel schedules) but the Reds and Indians wanted to play instead, having a regional rivalry and all, and MLB screwed the Expos because the Expos are the easiest team to screw.
I went to all three games of the Expos series, and I have to say that as much as I enjoyed it, I would have rather had the Reds. Griffey’s return to Safeco with a chance to hit 500 against his old club (which has given up a lot of dingers)… that’s historically cool. I’ve wanted to see Adam Dunn live and in person, and the Reds are a competitive franchise with a lot of talent and interesting things. Mostly I just wanted to see Griffey return.
I can’t verify that this is the case — and I’ll be honest, I haven’t applied myself to the question — but if it is, wouldn’t the Mariners protest? They’re astute businesspeople, wouldn’t they see how cool and promotable that would be?
Wooooh! The Mariners beat the stuffing out of the worst team in baseball! Go guys!
I’m serious — I wouldn’t look at the pitching so much, but the Mariners did score early and often against the back end of one of the better rotations in baseball. Keep the champagne in the fridge, but wasn’t it nice to see them scoring runs?
Overheard at the Ballpark, 6/13/04: “Bloomquist has power. He just hasn’t shown it yet.”
Also, I want to point out that having volunteers staff the concessions results in long lines and poor service levels.
This didn’t show up on MLB’s transactions pages so I missed it, but Quinton McCracken signed a minor league deal with the Diamondbacks after his release from the Mariners (which also wasn’t on the transactions pages). It appears though that he’ll end up getting some regular playing time, at least for a while, given the state of that team.