Smoak played in 5 games with Tacoma, hitting .238/.273/.333 with a couple of doubles. That obviously doesn’t mean much however, so take it as a grain of salt.

As for Liddi, it was only a matter of time until he returned to his pseudo-home of Tacoma. As tradition, he struggled in his brief playing time during his call-up. In just 18 at bats he had just one hit, while striking out 7 times. He will return to AAA as he tries to make himsef into more than a organization filler, but that is unlikely to happen. He has been about average with the Rainiers this year, so I wouldn’t expect much moving forward.

While this move may seem pretty cut and dry, there are some larger implications at hand. As if the team was not already filled with enough 1B/DH types, Michael Morse seems to still be suffering from an injury, while Kendrys Morales just returned from one of his own. Morse may not see much time in the outfield for a little while, so that leaves three guys for two spots.

Morales obviously deserves to play as much as he can, so that leaves the other two batting for time. While Morse has been underwhelming himself this year, he has fared better at the plate than Smoak has. He currently has a 118 wRC+, to Smoak’s 105.

Defensively however, it is a different story. By most accounts, Smoak is average or better at 1st. Morse? Not so much. It all depends on what the team is going for. Offense seems to be the main priority, as the outfield defense has been terrible. That suggests Morse will get the majority of the time, until he is able to return to the outfield.

However, this team has stuck with Smoak this long, and may like what he has been able to do in terms of getting on base. The most likely case is some kind of time share. I am not saying they will split it evenly into thirds, but I doubt any of the three will be relegated to full time bench duty.

It will be interesting to see how the M’s decide to handle the problem that they created, and that was bound to pop up at some point. In my opinion, Smoak belongs on the bench as a late inning defensive replacement and pinch hitter. But I doubt the M’s and I will see eye to eye.

Anyone who follows this team at all closely, or even glances at the rotation can tell you that the back end of our rotation sucks. Aaron Harang and Jeremy Bonderman are not MLB level starters. There is no way you could ever convince me otherwise. So I’m going to go over the potential replacements and the reasons why Harang and Bonderman could be replaced and may not be. Here is a hint: it’s not pretty. In Part 1 I’ll talk about Harang, Erasmo Ramirez and James Paxton. Part 2 will be up tomorrow at about the same time and will discuss Jeremy Bonderman, Blake Beavan, Hector Noesi, and Brandon Maurer.

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Aaron Harang

First and foremost, I would like to say that the nickname “The Harangatan” is one of the worst ever, and I am willing to sue on behalf of all Orangutans for psychological damages for being linked to that nickname. Second of all, Harang has had some very good games. He leads the league in complete game shutouts. Yes. Read that again. I’m not kidding. Baseball is weird. However, his complete game shutouts came against the Astros and the Padres. Two very bad hitting teams and the Padres start was in Petco, which is still a pitchers park, albeit to a lesser degree than the past. Here are Harang’s stats with the two shutouts removed. 8.30 ERA, 8.3 K/9. That is awful, but even when those two games are included his ERA is over 5.50. He is like a super poor mans Jason Vargas. And I really did not like Jason Vargas. I will admit this, Harang has also had two solid starts against the Pirates and Orioles, two of the better hitting clubs in the league. In short, Harang has faced some bad offenses in favorable conditions and done well. He has also faced some good offense and done poorly much more often. Get him out of here.

 Erasmo Ramirez

Was anybody else concerned that Bartolo Colon ate Erasmo in Spring Training? But seriously, I was very concerned about his arm injury. After the team announced it there was no news. Nothing about him rehabbing or doing a throwing program, it seemed like Erasmo was destined for a year on the DL and possibly Tommy John. Anyway, he eventually did do a throwing program and some rehab and is now in AAA Tacoma and he hasn’t lost a step. In his 20.2 innings pitched, he has allowed 2 runs, 4 walks and has struck out 18. And I’ll go ahead and remind everyone that he turned 23 in May. So yes, everyone should be very excited for him to get to Seattle and be there for a while. It is only a matter of time before he is called up and Aaron Harang looks to be the one who will be leaving.

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James Paxton

Once a member of the vaunted “Big Three”, Paxton has seen a lot of his prospect polish die recently because of his struggles in AAA Tacoma. I don’t understand why that has happened, he has the same stuff he did last year and is still 24. His 5.18 ERA is pretty bad, but he has an FIP of 3.67; meaning that he has been the victim of some bad luck and command issues. His .385 BABIP corroborates the bad luck part and his 4.23 BB/9 agrees with the command issues. Essentially Paxton is the same pitcher he was last year, and that is the issue. The team wants to see him figure out his command and he has not been able to do that consistently. I don’t see Paxton coming up anytime this year, but he is an option and I do think he will compete for a spot next year.

On Sunday, not much changed. The M’s lost 10-2 and didn’t hit Bartolo Colon well after the second inning. Perhaps more startlingly, Hisashi Iwakuma only lasted five innings and allowed four earned runs. It was debatably his worst start of 2013. Even when he held Oakland scoreless for the first three innings, he worked out of tough jams in each frame.

Lost in another failed sweep is the fact that the Mariners just took two out of three games on the road against the American League’s best team.

The A’s recently shot past Texas for first place in the American League West, and were probably baseball’s hottest team going into this weekend. The last time they lost a series was May 15 to the Rangers. They pretty much caused the decline of the White Sox’s season, beating them five out of seven in that stretch. They entered the weekend coming off a sweep of the Yankees.

And yet Joe Saunders won a game on the road, Felix dominated again, Henry Blanco produced some magic and the Mariners took two out of three from the best team in the league at their hottest point of the season. Even though Sunday’s game sucked, Mariners fans can’t lose track of how big a coup this series really was for a young, struggling Seattle squad.