Ok here we go, I'm going to try and be as punctual and fast as Lash is at this. But I make no promises. I will also try and go in a similar order.

7:17 -- Remember Adam Jones? Of course, what am I saying. Well, he just singled to right off of Jarrod Washburn and then scored on Nick Markakis' deep double to right-center. It's something that Baltimore fans hope to see for many years to come. Washburn got out of the inning with a nice changeup for a strikeout on Aubrey Huff and getting Melvin Mora to fly out to deep center. Baltimore 1, Seattle 0

7:29 --- Strange play there, Willie tried to bunt and the ball came up and hit as he was going to first. He was called out and the official scoring on play is - 2U - or catcher unassisted on the putout. That hurt because Raul scalded a one-hopper to Brian Roberts at second for an inning ending double play.

Also Arthur Lee Rhodes spoke with the media today in Florida before the game. Here's a story on it.

7:41 -- Well the second inning was interesting for Jarrod Washburn. Jeremy Reed makes a nice catch plowing into the centerfield wall, but then he misjudges another flyball that goes over his head for a double. That was followed by a pair of Washburn walks to load the bases, but he got out of it

8:02 -- I'm not going to lie, I wanted to keep posting some interesting stuff, but nothing has really happened. It's actually pretty boring the last few innings. Still 1-0 Baltimore.

As of right now, Jarrod Washburn's pitch count is at 70 pitches after just three innings, so maybe not calling up that extra reliever today wasn't such a great idea.

And since there is nothing exciting happening here offensively for the Mariners, I will inform you that Wlad Balentien just crushed a three-run home run to left field for the Rainiers.

8:24 -- Well, Jarrod Washburn's evening is done after just four and 2/3 innings. He didn't look very sharp tonight. His location was just not very crisp. And he fell behind hitters consistently. He gave up three runs and left a two-out bases loaded mess for Roy Corcoran to try and get out of. Corcoran promptly gave up a double to Jay Payton that scored all three runs. All of the runs are credited to Washburn and it's now 6-0. I won't blame you if you change the channel.

8:37 -- Eight runs later it's finally over - the inning that is. The Orioles scored eight runs in the inning, all on two outs. It was not pretty. It tied the most runs given up by the Mariners in an inning this season, the other occurrence came on May 23rd against the Yankees in the fifth inning. Washburn gave up six runs on nine hits with four walks ... of Washburn's 96 pitches, 56 were strikes.

9:09 --- Anybody know who Garrett Olson is? Because right now, he's shutting out the Mariners. Seattle did have a good chance to get some runs, but Jay Payton made a nice running catch on Kenji Johima's sinking liner to left to end the threat.

So does anybody know who Garrett Olson is?

Is anybody out there? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?

It's 10-0.

Anyone?

9:40 -- Who's willing to bet that a certain poster on this blog will not be happy with Dave Trembley's decision to pull Olson with one out in the bottom of the ninth. Olson had never pitched a complete game in his career, and now he won't -- much to that certain poster's chagrin.

9:53 -- The loudest cheer of the night just happened as the Mariners finally scored a run in the bottom of the ninth. So instead of being shut out with 11 hits, the Mariners now have one run on 12 hits on Kenji Johjima's soft infield single.

10:01 -- The Mariners have just scored four runs on four balls that never traveled further than 100 feet. And even with that late fury, the Mariners still lose 10-5.

Lash has the game tomorrow. I'm helping out by filling in for our Rainiers writer, so I'll try and get some interesting stuff from there.

Baltimore (51-56)
Brian Roberts 2B
Adam Jones CF
Nick Markakis RF
Aubrey Huff DH
Melvin Mora 3B
Ramon Hernandez C
Kevin Millar 1B
Jay Payton LF
Juan Castro SS
--------------
Garrett Olson LHP

Seattle (41-67)
Ichiro RF
Bloomquist SS
Ibanez LF
Beltre 3B
Lopez 2B
Vidro DH
Cairo 1B
Johjima C
Reed CF
---------
Washburn P

We've got two guys up here tonight for the monumental, season-changing series with the Baltimore Orioles. Actually, Doug Pacey is up here to cover the game, while I sat and reminisced with Adam Jones about the simpler times in Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.

Actually, Jones is quite giddy today and in a good mood. First of all, it's his 23rd birthday today, but more than that it's because he's raised his average to .275 this season. He's hit in 22 of his last 29 games, going 37-for-118 with two doubles, four triples, three homers and 20 RBI. Since June 1, he's hitting .300 (60-for-200) with seven doubles, four triples, five homers, 31 runs scored and 31 RBI.

A few things from Jim Riggleman's media gathering ...

The Mariners will go to battle with 24 players tonight. Seattle hasn't decided on who to call up to replace Arthur Rhodes' spot on the 25-man roster, so they will go with no one tonight. Since R.A. Dickey went 7 2/3 the other night, the Mariners bullpen is pretty rested.

As to who it will be, Riggleman wasn't certain.

“It’s going to be a reliever,” he said. “We’re just going to try and go through it here for another week and see what we have. Whoever we bring up will go to our bullpen immediately.”
Riggleman said the team was considering “two or three” pitchers.

If he's looking at relievers from the Rainiers, they have righthanders Jared Wells, Jon Huber, Oscar Villareal or Jorge Sosa. Not much in the way of lefthanded relief help, other than Jake Woods. But Seattle has Cesar Jimenez in the bullpen.

* From Doug: Injury updates
Shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt’s sore right elbow – his throwing arm – will likely keep him out of the starting lineup until at least Sunday, Riggleman said. Betancourt hasn’t played since Tuesday because of a “tender” throwing arm.

“Had sore elbow last year, it popped up again,” Riggleman said. “Rather than let it be a chronic thing, we’re going to let it calm down. When he says it’s calmed down and he can fire the ball around, we’ll run him out there.”

Riggleman said Betancourt told him he would be ready to play today, but the manager will probably hold him out for an extra day to make sure Betancourt’s elbow has been rested enough.

Catcher Jeff Clement, suffering from a bruised right thumb, told Riggleman that it feels well enough to hit and he should be ready to throw today. Clement hasn’t played since Monday.

Starting pitcher Erik Bedard, who hasn’t pitched since July 4, will throw in the bullpen on Sunday, Riggleman said. He was put on the disabled list on July 10 because of stiffness in his shoulder.

Let's get to some links really quickly ...

* Here's Larry's game story from today's paper which leads with R.A. Dickey making a case for the starting rotation. Would anybody argue putting Dickey in over Batista at this point?

* Here's the story on the Arthur Rhodes trade and GM Lee Pelekoudas' assessment of what went down.

* Columnist John McGrath offered up his own take on the Mariners trade deadline moves, or lack thereof, in this column.

* Rainiers starter Andy Baldwin, who was acquired in the Jamie Moyer trade, had a strong outing last night.

* Speaking of the Rainiers, the voice of the Rainiers, and friend of this blog Mike Curto was on KJR with Ian Furness today, here's the audio of the interview.

Trade Deadline winners and losers ... I'm sure you know where most people put the Mariners.
* SI's Jon Heyman and ESPN's Jayson Stark offer up their opinions.

Here's the lineups ...
Baltimore (51-56)
Brian Roberts 2B
Adam Jones CF
Nick Markakis RF
Aubrey Huff DH
Melvin Mora 3B
Ramon Hernandez C
Kevin Millar 1B
Jay Payton LF
Juan Castro SS
--------------
Garrett Olson LHP

Seattle (41-67)
Ichiro RF
Bloomquist SS
Ibanez LF
Beltre 3B
Lopez 2B
Cairo 1B
Johjima C
Reed CF
---------
Washburn LHP

... see this guy playing every day at Safeco Field

Or would you rather see this guy ...

I ask this question today because I was listening to KJR on Thursday, preparing myself mentally before going on with Ian Furness for an interview, and I heard a caller trying to justify the lack of moves with veteran players by saying "they want to put a winning team on the field that will keep fans coming to games."

Is that his best logic? How have those veterans done for the first 108 games? Not so good. 41-67 to be exact. It's not the like the Mariners have rolled out a winning product for any extended period this season.

But instead of continuing to insult this callers' apparent ignorance - which is like reminding Ms fans of how terrible the Jason Varitek, Derek Lowe deadline trade for Heathcliff Slocumb was for them - I instead wonder what Mariners fans want to see at this point.

Do you want to see Jose Vidro, Miguel Cairo and the like go out there and try to scrap their ways to meaningless victories that would only minutely soften the catastrophic results of this season?

OR

Do you want to see younger guys like Jeff Clement, Wlad Balentien, Bryan LaHair getting plenty of big league innings and at-bats and pitchers like Ryan Rowland-Smith, Ryan Feirabend and even Brandon Morrow make starts to help them improve, along with plenty of Sept. call-ups and late playing time for players like Rob Johnson, Michael Saunders, Tug Hulett, Matt Tuisasosopo and Jared Wells?

Think about it for a second.

My answer is this: it seems totally logical for Vidro to be on this team for another day. Look the Mariners secretly held out some morbid hope that they might get something in a trade for him - something more than a used pine tar rag and a busted cup - but they didn't, so it's time to say adios. Jose Vidro is not a part of this team's future, and he shouldn't be. So ship him out and bring Balentien up again. Sure he struggled the first time, but you have to give him another shot, if only to prove to yourself whether he can play at the major league level or not.

So again I'm asking this: "Would you rather see the Mariners try and win games with guys like Jose Vidro, Miguel Cairo, Miguel Batista and Kenji Johjima? or Would you rather see the Mariners give some of their young players like Jeff Clement, Bryan LaHair and Wlad Balentien given chances to learn on the job of the final 54 games to prepare for next season and beyond?

It doesn't seem like a tough answer to me.