Normally, I don't get nights off when there is a Rainiers game or a Mariners game in the area. Usually, I am at one or the other. But after a long stretch of games and days of work in a row - I think 18 of 19, they gave me part of the weekend off and tonight off, even with the Rainiers playing Fresno at Cheney Stadium

So what did I do? Well, I went to the Rainiers game of course. Yes, I have no life. But it was a perfect night in Tacoma and Brandon Morrow was on the mound and I have yet to see him pitch for the Rainiers this season. So I went and sat below by the scouts behind home plate so I could get a good read on his breaking stuff and how much he's throwing it.

Unlike the big leagues, there's no TV (though the Rainiers are on Comcast some) and no pitch tracker to keep track, even the stadium radar gun can be of no help. The best way is sit down below and watch from behind. There you can see the break and get some sort of feel of what the batters are seeing.

My decision seemed to be a good one. Because I got to watch what, according to Rainiers manager Daren Brown was Morrow's "best outing since he's joined us."

Morrow pitched seven innings, allowing two runs on seven hits, while striking out five and walking just one in the Rainiers' 7-2 win over the Fresno Grizzlies. He threw 89 pitches with 69 of them coming for strikes.

And revisiting my college and legion coaching days, I even charted Morrow's pitches. Of the 89, unofficially 36 of them were offspeed pitches - either his slider, curve or change-up.

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As the Mariners return to the Kansas City Royals, they will see some former teammates, including Gil Meche, who got a $55 million contract - wow, just, wow on that, Miguel Olivo, who was part of the forgettable Freddy Garcia trade, Willie Bloomquist, who is getting his wish of playing close to every day thanks to a myriad of injuries and overall bad to other players, and of course, the man above, the recently traded Yuniesky Betancourt.

Since joining the Royals, Yuni is hitting .113 in 16 games. Not exactly a major improvement over what they had before in Tony Pena and Mike Aviles

Most of you will remember how much Royals fans lamented the acquisition for Dan Cortes and Derrick Saito.

GM Dayton Moore somewhat infamously defended the trade and all of his recent moves - acquiring Mike Jacobs and such - saying "trust the process" - a moniker which has now become almost a mocking statement by KC fans with every loss.

The KC Star has fantastic coverage of the Royals, in their Ball Star blog, Sam Mellinger compares Yuni and Jack Wilson, particularly on their defensive ratings.

And the Star's award-winning columnist Joe Posnanski has his own blog, which I feel is must reading for sports fans. His books on Buck O'Neill

Posnanski, who I've linked to often on here, is a die-hard baseball fan, who has also embraced the latest sabrmetric stats along, and often comes up with great opinions and analysis on baseball, not just the Royals.

Like most, he was not exactly pleased when he found out that the Royals traded for Yuni.

And since then he's also done a few "Yuni Watch" posts keeping track of his progress as a Royal. They are fairly entertaining to read.

Yuni Watches
August 1
July 31
July 30
July 29