Mariners Moose Tracks, 7/21/23: Tucker the Mariners Pup, Bo Bichette, and Carlos Santana

It’s Sunday, and if it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Links.

In Mariners news...

• God’s most perfect creation got older yesterday!

• If I could go back to March and tell past me that in July, Victor Robles would be trying to single-handedly carry the Mariners offense in July, I think past me would have a litany of follow-up questions, the answers to which would probably leave me feeling pretty excited that the Mariners were only a couple games out of first place. Were it so simple.

• Remember when Julio gave the Mariners the lead for like fifteen minutes? What a fifteen minutes that was am I right?

Around the league...

• I’ve seen enough, the Mariners can win the West with one move. Bring him home.

• The Rays trounced the Yankees at home yesterday and Randy Arozarena, one of the Rays biggest potential trade chips this season, had a big game that brought the boo birds out in the Bronx.

• The “will they, won’t they” intrigue surrounding the Blue Jays as the trade deadline approaches mostly concerns Bo Bichette and Vlad Guerrero. Will they trade both? Will they trade one and extend the other? Will they extend both? Guerrero is certainly the easiest of the two to move this season, as Bichette’s .597 OPS and 70 OPS+ will be tough to get a return on, and now Bichette is going back to the IL with a calf strain after he left last night’s game early, the third instance in a string of calf related injuries for Bichette in the last month.
• America’s least favorite fail-son, John Fisher, is still finding new and innovative ways to fail, this time confirming that there is currently no financing option for the A’s proposed stadium plan in Las Vegas.
• I’m reasonably confident that there is at least one person that works in the league office that thinks the Phillies/Pirates ‘POOP’ scoreboards are too vulgar, so this person is probably onto something.

• Former Mariners sweeper specialist Penn Murfee is nearing a return from Tommy John surgery, a potential boost for a surging Astros team
• Look out Mr. and Mrs. Met, there’s a new baseball power couple!