Pressure to squash Cal Raleigh drama shifts to Randy Arozarena in Mariners return

The Seattle Mariners fanbase is now into Day 3 of hoping the weird beef (or at least, beef-adjacent thing) between Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena will just go away. The problem is that Randy Arozarena's side of the story remains shrouded in mystery.

Granted, we know what he had to say about Raleigh refusing a handshake when USA and Mexico clashed in the World Baseball Classic on Monday. The stuff about Raleigh's parents was nice, but it was the one F-bomb and the multiple A-bombs that generated headlines and forced Raleigh to respond.

Though Raleigh's own response was lacking in one key way, the fact that he spoke at all effectively put the ball in Arozarena's court. When approached by reporters (including Bob Nightengale of USA Today) ahead of Mexico's tilt with Italy on Wednesday, Arozarena had nothing to say:

With Mexico having been eliminated by last night's 9-1 loss, Arozarena's time in the WBC is over. That makes it time to head back to Mariners camp in Peoria, where some are bound to ask the same question that's been on the minds of fans: What the heck is going on?

It shouldn't be this unclear whether the Mariners have a problem between Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena

To be clear, the "nothing burger" read of this situation has legitimate merit.

If he was offended by what Arozarena said in response to the handshake snub, Raleigh didn't show it and instead took the high road. And while he frustratingly declined to fully explain why he didn't shake his Mariners teammate's hand, it now seems possible that he was intentionally taking the heat.

USA manager Mark DeRosa had alluded to Arozarena having advance warning that Raleigh was not going to do any fraternizing during the WBC, and now there's a second source to back that up. In an interview with Daily Puck Drop, Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times doubled down on how Arozarena supposedly knew not to try to shake Raleigh's hand:

If this is true, there's a new layer to the question of Arozarena's intentions. Beyond whether he was being sarcastic with his profane postgame rant, there's whether his mere attempt to shake Raleigh's hand was actually a bit of gamesmanship.

Further clouding the picture is the post that Alek Thomas, one of Arozarena's Mexico teammates, made on Instagram on Wednesday. It's a picture of the snubbed handshake with a caption that reads, "Take things personally."

It's all very confusing, and the only two possibilities at this point are either A) Arozarena really was and still is offended, or B) he's committed to the bit of acting like he was.

For his part, Dan Wilson doesn't anticipate the Raleigh-Arozarena thing "being any bit of an issue" for the Mariners going forward. And one way or another, that is the most likely outcome. This doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would cause a lasting grudge. And even if it does, teammates don't necessarily have to like each other to pull in the same direction.

Regardless, this whole thing has felt just so utterly needless from the start. And given how much time has passed, it's not encouraging that the story still isn't going away.