BOX SCORE

The definition of a rivalry is not Padres-Mariners no matter how much Bud Selig wants it to be. The so called "natural" rivals in interleague play don't hate each other. There's no bragging rights over the Fields No. 12 and 13 at the Peoria Spring training complex or the best tables at the Salty Seniorita or first in line at the In-Out burger.

But also in my definition of a rivalry each team has an equal chance of winning and of late that isn't the case.

The Mariners have owned the Padres (one of the worst big league teams I've ever seen).

With Wednesday’s 4-3 win over the Padres, Seattle has now won eight straight against their rivals and 10 straight at Petco Park. It’s the longest winning streak by an opponent at Petco since it opened. In the last 20 games against the Padres the Mariners have won 16.

Yeah, it was far from dominating and Nick Hundley's poor decision and even worse pick-off throw to third that was low and left, and allowed Franklin Gutierrez to trot home with the winning run was a gift.

Garrett Olson didn't pitch bad, but he gave up two homers on 0-2 pitches, and after the press meeting when I asked Don Wakamatsu how frustrating watching 0-2 bombs are, he just stuck out his jaw, looked down and shook his head.

Still Wak was pretty happy with Olson's outing --- 6 IP, 3 runs, 2 hits and a walk.

"Other than that he was awfully good today," Wak said. "I thought his composure was good and like the way he attacked the hitters."

Wak said he would have preferred a few more change-ups from Olson, particularly to right-handers like Kevin Kouzmanoff and Chase Headley, who hit the homers.

Mike Carp was pretty funny after the game.

He talked about his ultra hard swing on the 1-0 pitch.

"He threw slider away and I knew he didn't want to go 2-0 to me, so why not try to lose one there," Carp said.

But more impressive he was able to come back and lay off some pitches out of the zone and draw a walk. I don't imagine many guys work walks in the first MLB at-bats.

Lopez with his 10th homer this season...he has hit seven of those 10 homers in the last 17 games. Since May 29th, he’s hitting .333 (22-for-66) and raised his average from .216 to .248.

If you think I've run out of Anchorman references, well, you just don't have any idea the depth of my limitless knowledge of mundane comedies. The amount of Dumb and Dumber references I can make is obscene.

People call me the Bry man; I'm the stylish one of the group.
I can't run the rest of the quote unfortunately.

1st inning
Chad Gaudin is not a pretty man.

And his numbers --- 2-5, 6.16 ERA are not better to look at ... so of course he'll probably give the M's fits tonight. 1-2-3 in the first.

Garrett Olson also has a smooth first inning.

2nd inning
Panda Watch. The mood is tense; I have been on some serious, serious reports but nothing quite like this. I uh... Ching... King is inside right now. I tried to get an interview with him, but they said no, you can't do that he's a live bear, he will literally rip your face off.

Garrett Olson gives up a lead-off "jager" bomb to Kevin Kouzmanoff to start the inning. So the Padres won't be shut out for the third straight game.

Seattle gets runners first and second, but Jamie Burke grounds into a 4-6-3 DP to end the inning.

3rd inning
No, she gets a special cologne... It's called Sex Panther by Odeon. It's illegal in nine countries... Yep, it's made with bits of real panther, so you know it's good.
Gaudin gets through another 1-2-3 inning, Olson does as well.

4th inning
They've done studies, you know. 60% of the time it works, every time.
The Mariners have themselves a lead. Russell Branyan leads off with a single and then comes all the way around to score on Junior's double off the wall in left-center. Then Jose Lopez follows with a two-run homer. Larry Stone just informed me thanks his far superior Cal education to my Montana/DSU degrees that Lopey is on pace for 105 RBI. So he's got that going for him, which is nice ... wait wrong movie.

In the bottom of the inning, Griffey makes a nice little leaping/hopping catch in left. Not vintage Griffey defense, but it was a catch. Yet, the Padres tie the game as Chase Headley crushes an 0-2 90 mph fastball on the inner half into the third deck of the Western Metal Supply Co building. That's the second 0-2 homer Olson gave up today. We're tied 3-3.

5th inning
Well, that's just great. You hear that, Ed? Bears. Now you're putting the whole station in jeopardy!

The Mariners play add on as Gutierrez draws a walk, moves to second on Olson's sac bunt and to third on Ichiro's single. He later scores on Nick Hundley's ill-advised pick-off attempt to third. But the Mariners don't get another run as Ichiro is stranded at third when Branyan strikes out and Beltre grounds out.

Olson goes 1-2-3 through the bottom of the order.

7th inning
Take it easy, Champ. Why don't you sit this next one out, stop talking for a while.
Did you know Garrett Olson's longest career outing was 8 1/3 innings last season with the Orioles -- against the Mariners, of course. He makes it through six, but Mike Carp will make his big league debut to pinch hit for him. Fittingly Carp draws a walk. But is stranded.

In the bottom of the inning, Mark Lowe gets a couple of outs and gives up a walk and brings up Nick Hundley, who strikes out. But the more interesting aspect of the at-bat was that Hundley fouled a screamer up into the press box that drilled the back of CBS sportsline columnist Scott Miller's laptop. It hit so hard it shattered the screen of his lap top. The screen is unreadable. Every writer always worries it's going to happen them, and I believe it happened to Kirby Arnold of the Everett Herald as well.

8th inning
Hey, you're making me look stupid. Get out of here, Panda Jerk.
Great catch on a line drive by Yuni, but a dumb off balance throw to first when he had no chance. The ball skipped by Branyan, but the limited foul territory never allowed Brian Giles to advance an extra base. That might have saved a run on David Eckstein's soft single, but Giles made it to third, so the Mariner and Sean White have runners on the corners with two outs and Adrian Gonzalez, he of the 22 homers up at the plate. White pitches carefully to Gonzalez and walks him - his second of the game.

So it's my one-night drinking buddy Kevin Kouzmanoff and the bases loaded ... He hits hard right to Adrian Beltre, who gloves and tags third. A rally averted and my lead saved.

So here is what we know, Erik Bedard is going to the disabled list. It's retroactive to June 8th and he's eligible to come off on June 23rd. LHP Jason Vargas will take Bedard's spot in the rotation on Saturday, and Felix Hernandez will start on Sunday.

According to Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik, Bedard will go visit Dr. Lewis Yocum in the Los Angeles. If you remember, Yocum was the orthopedic surgeon who did the offseason procedure on Bedard.

"We’re close," Zduriencik said. "We’re right here. Yocum is very familiar with him and what’s went on in the past. I think there’s a comfort zone there so we’ll see what happens tomorrow."

So what exactly happened?

Well, Bedard felt some discomfort in the back part of his shoulder following his flat-ground throwing session. And yesterday we saw him pointing to spots on his shoulder as he talked to trainer Rick Griffin.

"He just said he was uncomfortable," Zduriencik said. "When he got done throwing he said he felt a little bit back there. But he said he was okay. We were going to do a bullpen today. But thinking through this thing a little bit more, we talked about it this afternoon when Don and I went to lunch, and we just said, he’s already missed time, we can back date this thing 10 days, a little bit similar to what we did with Ichiro and save some time."

So where is the level of concern?

"With Erik I’m hoping this is just precautionary," Zduriencik said. "He’s going to go up and see Dr. Yocum tomorrow who did some work on him this past winter. We backdated the DL which bought us some time, what we’re hoping for is he’s ready to go next week. That’s the plan for him. But we’ll know a little bit more after tomorrow. Nobody wants to take a chance with has as good as he’s been throwing."

Said manager Don Wakamatsu: There was nothing after his last start. He felt some achiness, some inflammation in there. The last thing we want to do is to have him go down that path of last year. So instead of having him throw that bullpen today, we said, let's get it checked out. We can back-date him and be ready for the Tuesday start (against the Padres in Safeco)

So did something change from yesterday?

Coming into today, he felt a little stiffness in there and didn't like what he felt," Wakamatsu said. "It's one of those things, you don't know how he feels. You can't get inside his body. I'd be the last guy to question that, because I went through a similar situation. All we care about is getting it right."

Wakamatsu was asked about Bedard's forthrightness about the discomfort after what happened last season with the confusion about his health.

"Because he went through that last year, and didn't want to go through that and miss that much time, he's done a great job as far as letting us know he feels something in there that's not quite 100 percent," Wakamatsu said. "We want to make sure we keep him healthy all year."

As for Mike Carp, this could be like the cliche - a cup of coffee. Really there is no set time that he could be here. Realistically if the Mariners need pitching in a pinch, Carp could be sent out on Friday or Saturday for Ryan Rowland-Smith or bullpen help.

But Carp, who hitting .299 with with 16 doubles, 10 home runs and 32 RBI and a stellar on-base percentage of .412 and a slugging percentage of .517 earned a chance to come up.

"The guy has played well down there and he’s done a nice job," Zduriencik said. "He’s a first baseman and were going to lose a first baseman for a day, so why not gtive him a reward. At the end of the day, the guy’s played good and he’s earned it. He was on the roster and it was an easy move."

Carp isn't in the line-up tonight, but will start on Thursday. And being from Long Beach, he's got family coming. He's got 28 passes for the game tonight. He was notified after last night's game in Portland and flew out this morning.

"I set four alarms and left one wake-up call," he said.

But because he didn't know for certain that he was going to be activated he couldn't really spread the good news. He actually arrived in San Diego and ate lunch and waited to find out.

"I was walking on clouds," Carp said. "I didn’t get much sleep, but I am wide awake now."

Carp took early batting practice and had the luxury of Ken Griffey Jr. commenting about him the whole time.

"There were a lot of jitters, especially with Griffey standing behind the cage saying things," Carp said. "After first couple swings, I calmed down and went to work.”

While Carp has played some outfield with the Rainiers, and he says he'd feel comfortable if he had to play left field, Wakamatsu doesn't necessarily share the same comfort level, saying that playing outfield is a "secondary" thought.

Carp may only play a handful of games though.

"We're looking at it short-term right now. But it's a great opportunity for him. Probably not a better place to come for your debut than San Diego.

Can even a few games at the MLB level help him and his progress?

"Absolutely, any time you can come here and be around this, be around guys he met in spring training, especially guys like Junior and Mike Sweeney it helps," Wakamatsu said.

That makes six players from the JJ Putz -- if you count Garrett Olson and Ronny Cedeno, who were rolled over for Aaron Heilman -- to be on the 25-man roster from the Mariners. We tried to get Zduriencik to take some credit for it. But he would have none.

"You always make trade in the idea that it helps both clubs," Zduriencik said. "They had a need at that time for some bullpen help. How do you know if guys are going to be healthy? They are in a tough situation now with what’s happened to Putz, but who’s to say what would happened if two of our guys got hurt. It’s abut equity. We took younger players and they got seasoned vets if you will."

UPDATE: Thanks to our sweet blog technology, the updated post of Erik Bedard going to the disabled list that I had written 20 minutes ago never made it up. Sometimes it's like being in a gunfight with a bow and arrow.

Anyway, Bedard has been sent to the disabled list. It will be retroactive to June 7th, he's eligible to come off June 23rd.

Is this a surprise? No. I actually thought it might happen last night after watching him throw yesterday and seeing trainer Rick Griffin check out his sore shoulder with Bedard pointing to certain spots after an eight minute throwing session.

Second, I saw Bedard walking out of Petco today, as I was walking in. I thought it was odd since he was supposed to be preparing for his bullpen session in about a half hour. But I didn't want to speculate.

So when you see Carp, you think that's the move, well now its official.

Bedard has not pitched since tossing 5.0 innings on June 7 vs. the Minnesota Twins. He missed a start in Colorado last weekend with the inflammation prior to being placed on the 15-day DL today. Since the DL placement is retroactive to June 8, Bedard will be eligible to return from the disabled list June 23.

Bedard is 5-2 with a 2.47 ERA in 11 starts this season. He has allowed 2 earned runs or less in 9 of his 11 starts, and has not allowed more than 3 earned runs in any start. His 2.47 ERA ranks fourth in the American League, and he is holding opposing hitters to a .221 average, fifth-best in the AL.

Carp, who turns 23 on June 30, has spent the season with AAA Tacoma. In 59 games with the Rainiers, he hit .299 (63-for-211) with 16 doubles, 10 home runs and 32 RBI. He boasts a .311 mark (46-for-148) vs. right-handed pitching with an on-base + slugging percentage (OPS) of 1.026. Carp has played mostly first base this season, but has appeared in five games in left field, as well as serving as a designated hitter.

Carp is not in the line-up tonight, but he will start on Thursday in place of Russell Branyan who is leaving for the his grandfathers funeral.

Here's tonight's lineup
Ichiro RF
Branyan 1B
Beltre 3B
Griffey Jr. LF
Lopez 2B
Betancourt SS
Burke C
Gutierrez CF
Garrett Olson LHP

We're sitting in the press box and the Mariners were taking early BP when a light headed guy stepped out of the dugout carrying a bat --- and I said, "That's Mike Carp."

So Mike Carp is here. Don't know what the roster move is yet, but we'll have more.

According to my source close to the Rainiers, Carp was told last night that there was no guarantee he would be activated today but they were going to fly him down just in case.

Initially you would think the move was to replace Branyan who's going to leave for his grandfather's funeral on Thursday. But Wakamatsu said Branyan would NOT be placed on the bereavement list.

We're trying to figure it out.

Manager Don Wakamatsu was named as a coach for the American League team in this year's All-Star game in St. Louis. It's a nice honor for a first-year manager and one that's very deserving if you consider the Mariners record this year compared to last, the improvement in overall on field play and the cohesiveness of the clubhouse.

Wakamatsu will join Ichiro Suzuki in St. Louis, while Ken Griffey Jr., Felix Hernandez and Russell Branyan could also make the team.

You can vote for the All-Star game HERE

American League manager Joe Maddon named Wakamatsu and Kansas City manager Trey Hillman as coaches. He will also bring his coaches from Tampa Bay -– Tom Foley (third base), Steve Henderson (hitting), former St. Louis Cardinals All-Star and 1982 World Series Champion George Hendrick (first base), Jim Hickey (pitching), Dave Martinez (bench) and Bobby Ramos (bullpen) – will comprise his staff. Toronto Blue Jays head trainer George Poulis and Oakland Athletics head athletic trainer Steve Sayles will round out the A.L. staff.

The National League team coaching staff has a slight bit more experience with Phillies manager Charlie Manuel naming Dodgers skipper Joe Torre and Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa as his coaches. The remainder of the Phillies staff - Mick Billmeyer (bullpen), Rich Dubee (pitching), Davey Lopes (first base), Pete Mackanin (bench), Sam Perlozzo (third base) and Milt Thompson (hitting) – will assist with batting practice and other field duties, while Cardinals head athletic trainer Barry Weinberg and Chicago Cubs director of athletic training Mark O’Neal will tend to the N.L. All-Stars.

* Also a congratulations to Rainiers pitching coach Dwight Bernard and trainer Tom Newberg, who were named to the Triple A All-Star game coaching staff. That game will be held in Portland and could feature a handful of Rainiers players including Jeff Clement, Mike Carp and Randy Messenger.

To vote for the Rainiers in the Triple A game, you can HERE.