So today, I headed over to Peoria (1.5 miles away) to watch the final Mariners game in their Arizona portion of Spring Training. The ticket clearly indicates a 1:05 start but for some reason the game is in the top of the first upon our 12:15 "early" arrival. I finally got the chance to watch a King start and he is utterly sucktastic.

My dad was amazed that I could guess 90% of his pitches before he threw them. Said father, whose mind cannot process anything trickier than AVG, "it seems like everytime he throws really hard, the other team seems to hit it very hard". Why does my father know this yet the Mariners organization and "guru" Mel chooses to "establish the fastball"? Some things never change. Time for another open letter? Maybe more IM'ing?

Turns out that Felix was one of only four MLB-level Mariners to play in this game. I don't remember getting a reduced-price ticket to watch kids that even most of you have never heard of. The other big club members were Kenji, Pepe, and Boom-Boom who each played about half the game. I explained the "Pepe" commercial to my father and then realized a) how stupid the commercial actually is and b) how retarded I sound actually trying to explain the stupid commercial. Anyhow.

What resulted was one of the most slopperific yet entertaining games I have seen live in quite some time. The two teams combined for over 30 hits, a few stolen bases, 4 or 5 monster shots (not to be confused with fan shots), 6 errors, along with just a couple of errant pitches actually hitting the backstop netting on the fly.

Thanks to the Minor League updates that Gomez furnished throughout the 2007 season, I somehow got hooked on a couple of players such as Greg Halman and Mark Kiger. Both of these guys put on a very good show with each going yard and Kiger putting up more than a couple of hits. The Padres' "major-leaguers" seemed absolutely terrrified to run on Halman who started in RF and later shifted to Center. By my count, there were five opportunuties that baserunnners had a likely chance of advancing to the next base safely only to slam on the brakes. Free Greg Halman.

So, since there is absolutely no point to this whole "fanpost", I ask you this: who are some of the lower-level players that you are fans of? Is there anything currently in the Rookie - AA range to be excited about sans Aumont (and Triunfel)? Does Halman have a shot in a couple of years?

Have at it...and Free Greg Halman! Oh yeah, the game was a 10-10 tie called after 9 innings. Meh.

Looks like our old buddy Emiliano Fruto has been traded once again, this time to Arizona as part of the Wily Mo 3-way trade. For those of you that may judge a trade by the results, is there a chance Bavasi gets brownie points for "fleecing" Jim Bowden?

After all, he did get Turbo while Washington no longer has Doyle or Fruto. Just in case I do not have 300 characters, I would like to add that I still do not like the trade though it does take the sting out of it when Vidro's hitting like a madman as of late.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/08/21/bc.bbo.penatrade.ap/index.html