The Mariners made it official Wednesday: Safeco Field is dead. Long live (25 years) T-Mobile Park.

The club confirmed the naming rights switch to the Bellevue-based telecom powerhouse matches the length of its recent lease extension with the Public Facilities District, the public entity that technically owns the building so that the Mariners don't have to pay King County property taxes.

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One of the more intriguing observations about CF Jarred Kelenic, said to be the prize in the Mariners' inefficient trade with the New York Mets that required sacrificing All-Star closer Edwin Diaz in order to dump Robinson Cano and his contract, is his birth year of 1999.

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It seems as if James Paxton has been a Mariner a long time. Not Felix Hernandez long (since 2005) but long enough (2013) that he is a fixture. Which is why I've been amazed at his total accumulation in the simplest measurement of a starting pitcher's contribution.

Wins.

His career total is 41. For most of six seasons at the MLB level.

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Leading off, Philip Rivers. Batting second, Jared Goff. Hitting third, Aaron Rodgers. And at the cleanup spot, Cam Newton.

If you've been following this ruthless little four-week run of of top-shelf NFL quarterbacks, you know that the Seahawks are 0-2 against the Chargers' Rivers and the Rams' Goff, and face No. 3 Rodgers Thursday (5:20 p.m., FOX) at the Clink. Worthy of note is that the Green Bay Packers have won the past three games between the teams by a combined score of 82-36.

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Well, that hire certainly didn't go well.

Dr. Lorena Martin, seen a year ago as a cutting-edge figure, in the sport -- the Mariners' first director of high performance -- was fired Oct. 10 and unleashed Monday a social media tirade against general manager Jerry Dipoto, blaming him for a culture that produced derogatory racial remarks she alleges were made by club officials about Latino players, and also firing Latino trainers at their Dominican Republic facility.

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A good defensive catcher is a little like a good middle linebacker in football. Fortunately for the Seahawks' Bobby Wagner, they don't ask him to play running back, even even if he volunteers.

But as with all MLB teams, the Mariners wanted points out of catcher Mike Zunino too. So much so that they shipped him to Tampa Bay Thursday, despite it being one day after he received national recognition as MLB's best defensive catcher.

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In keeping with the plan to drive the franchise with data, the Mariners Tuesday hired Paul Davis, who had been manager of pitching analytics with the St. Louis Cardinals, to replace Mel Stottlemyre Jr. as pitching coach for 2019.

A five-year member of the Cardinals staff, Davis was assistant pitching coordinator for the club's minor leagues in 2016 and 2017.

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Edgar Martinez wants a better life. The Mariners want a better offense. So the hitting coach and the club Tuesday seemed to have reached a mutually convenient solution: Martinez will leave his current job to become next year the organization's overall hitting advisor.

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In a season of awkwardness -- sudden team achievement followed by even more abrupt ineptitude, a forced exit of Ichiro to purgatory, an 80-game suspension of Robinson Cano for PED use, a sex-harassment scandal in the front office, and an inability to improve a contending roster better at mid-season -- the Mariners did avert another ghastly moment that may have eclipsed all of those palms-over-face episodes.

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OAKLAND – As much as any team other than the one he plays for, the Oakland A’s have been responsible for seeing that Felix Hernandez has never appeared in a post-season series.

Sunday, they may have done it one more time in what was a make-or-break game for Seattle.

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OAKLAND – There are times when baseball looks easy.

Thursday night looked easy for Seattle, a 7-1 win over the A’s on the road. Jump up with a five-spot in the first inning, then coast home.

There are other times when nothing looks easy in the slightest.

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In 2005, the first season in the bigs for Felix Hernandez, 50 major league pitchers threw at least 200 innings. He went on to have eight seasons of 200-plus.

By 2010, there were 45 pitchers who reached the benchmark. In 2015, 28. In 2016 and in 2017, there were 15 each season. In 2018, there will probably be fewer. None of them will be Mariners.

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OAKLAND – There are, of course, no must-win baseball games on Aug. 15.

Not with a quarter of the season still to play. For the Mariners, however, Wednesday in the Coliseum came close to breaking that rule.

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OAKLAND – The Mariners headline Tuesday night against the A's at the Coliseum was supposed to be the return of Robinson Cano after his 80-game drug suspension. But that storyline took an early beating in what became a tough 3-2 loss for Seattle.

James Paxton, the left-handed ace of the starting rotation, lasted three batters. Oakland 2B Jed Lowrie hit a laser up the middle that caught Paxton on his left arm.

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OAKLAND – Everything you needed to know about how the Mariners feel about Robinson Cano's return after his 80-game drug suspension could be judged by the composition of the Coliseum interview room at the start of  his media briefing Tuesday, ahead of his first game back with Seattle since May 13.

There were nearly as many Mariners as there were media members.

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OAKLAND – The last time Robinson Cano was seen in a Mariners’ uniform, he was walking in pain back to the dugout in Detroit on a chilly spring Sunday.

The Mariners lost that May 13 game, 5-4, and lost Cano when a pitch from Blaine Hardy broke a bone in the second baseman's  hand. Two days later, the baseball world was rocked by news that Cano tested positive for a banned diuretic, the masking drug  furosemide.

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 OAKLAND – It’s been 16 years since their Moneyball season elevated the Oakland A’s, and seven summers since the movie about that summer had Brad Pitt make Billy Beane look cooler than any sports executive ever.

The excitement about that 2002 season was somewhat muted up to Aug. 13, when the A’s beat Toronto 5-4. The Mariners, coming off back-to-back AL West titles, had a 72-46 record Aug. 12. They had a 2½-game lead in the division over the Angels and 4½ over the A’s. Seattle was in good shape to make it three in a row.

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A four-game sweep.

Over the the defending champs.

In Houston.

After two terrible games against the Rangers in Arlington.

Following the grim demotion of franchise icon and friend to all Felix Hernandez.

The collective odds against this sequence for the Seattle Mariners were greater than the likelihood that Rick Rizzs can sing the blues.

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For a team having its best season in 15 years, with a record (65-50) every fan would have been thrilled with at season's start, the Mariners are beset with a trudge through a compost pile of unusual size and odor. Worse, it has been of their own creation.

As if ending a playoff drought of 16 seasons wasn't sufficiently difficult.

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A week ahead of his scheduled return to the Mariners, 2B Robinson Cano began an assignment in AAA Tacoma Monday night, starting at first base for the first time in his career. He can be reinstated from his 80-game suspension for violating MLB's drug policy Aug. 14. Rules permit a 14-day period to prepare for the return.

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