Fox Sports/The Sporting News: M's suffer blow to rotation with Piniero injury. "Mariners righthander Joel Pineiro will be sidelined for a significant period of time with an elbow injury, but he will not require ligament-transplant surgery, according to a source with knowledge of the pitcher's condition. It was originally feared that Pineiro had a tear in his elbow that would require surgery but further tests indicated that was not the case."

NB: I've decided to discontinue the game summaries. They were too depressing, and today is a very good day to be a Mariner fan. The best day since sometime in August of last year, really. Everything in my life is better today, thanks to this. Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean.

Lots of reaction out there today to the obvious topic of conversation in Marinerland, and I'd link to all of it, but I'm kind of on deadline right now (stupid election!), so this is going to be quick. Your first stop must be the mack-daddy of the Mariners blogipelago for lots of discussion about whether Bill Bavasi is stupid or smart or both, the merits of the trade, the reasons why the people who say "I don't know these guys, I love Freddy, this sucks" are morons, and more. OD is brilliant. Why Dave isn't getting paid to watch and scout (?) minor league ball is a total mystery to me.

NGFT gets angry reader e-mail (oh, that's the best kind!) about the trade. The Randy Johnson trade really ought to be tattooed on the eyelids of people who are freaking out about this.

The Wheelhouse looks at the trade from the perspective of other teams, specifically the Yankees, and examines the chronology of the discussions between Bavasi and Cashman.

Of course, DMB kicked my ass on tracking reaction, especially from AL Central-centric blogs (consensus: Kenny Williams got fleeced and Bill Bavasi is a thief), so you should just go look there for your links.

Traded RHP Freddy Garcia and C Ben Davis to Chicago for C Miguel Olivo, OF Jeremy Reed, and SS Michael Morse. Dave calls this "a fantastic trade for the Mariners" and then goes on to explain why.

.. someone please stop Jim Moore from ever writing another column about Jeff Cirillo. The cops are going to start to think he's a stalker, or something.

A great many words have been expended in the past 48 hours explaining exactly how done the Mariners are. JMB pretty much sums it up in one spot, saying that he's frustrated more by "their seeming inability -- or unwillingness -- to recognize what's broken and how to go about fixing it." Which seems like an excellent introduction into Steve's four part series on the decision-making process of the Mariners. David, meanwhile, finds some Zen in today's loss, which I kind of think embodies everything that's wrong with the Mariners this season.

I'd say that I'm frustrated and angry and that I'm paying less and less attention to baseball these days. But that's not true; I've been paying more attention to the sport, generally, than I have in years, and I think that's a function of having the Mariners suck ass. I'm rediscovering all these great things about the game that I'd forgotten, having my head stuck in Seattle for so many years (well, okay, four or five years) that it's kind of nice to not have to focus on a single team. And, I mean, let's face it: The Mariners are probably going to lose any given game they play, so why spend any serious time thinking about it or analyzing it?

This blog started out life as a news blog and the idea was to have a one-stop shopping point for news about the Mariners. But it's really hard to find new stuff to say when the story changes very little from day to day. Sure, you could get excited about wins against the 'spos or the Pirates, and you could spend some quality time watching guys like Derek turn purple.. or you could spend that time enjoying baseball as played by other teams with considerably more talent and ability than Your 2004 Seattle Mariners.

I'll try to be more dilligent in the future. But I can't make any promises -- the team is wretched, and until the moves begin there's really not much to write home about.

One thing I should try and figure out, though, since I apparently have mad SABR skillz: What's the record for single-season collapses in baseball history? How does the Mariners performance this year compared to last year figure in the annals of the game? We say that it can't get any worse, but is that necessarily true? (Perhaps this is one of those things that could only really be judged from the end of the season -- I don't know. But something to think about for October, anyway.)