Sports this 'n' that

When the baseball season began, the Seattle Mariners were one of the American League's hottest teams, riding the emotion of Ichiro Suzuki's retirement after a 2-game series with Oakland in his native Japan at the end of March.

Nearly three months later, the Mariners have all but given up on the playoffs.

In the last two weeks, Seattle traded 1B-outfielder Jay Bruce, who came to the Mariners from the Mets in the Robinson Cano deal, to Philadelphia, and shipped 1B-DH Edwin Encarnacion to the Yankees, as if the Bronx Bombers needed another offensive weapon.

This sudden turnaround will not endear Mariners management to their fan base, although it probably does drive up sales at the nearest Starbucks.
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The US women's soccer team has not allowed a goal in two games in the Women's World Cup after shutting out Chile, 3-0, on Sunday. Thailand, which was hammered, 13-0, last week, celebrated just scoring one goal in a 5-1 loss to Sweden. Baby steps, yo.

Sweden and the US have already qualified for the knockout round, and they have yet to play each other. Oh, this will be fun.
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Fourteen years ago, New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. The NBA's Pelicans have invited a living, breathing hurricane of hot air into town for next season.

America's worst stage parent, LaVar Ball, is at it again, sounding off after the Los Angeles Lakers included his son, Lonzo, in a trade to New Orleans over the weekend for Anthony Davis. La Loudmouth thinks the Lakers will never win another title. If only he'd paid attention to the fact that his son has had injury issues in his two seasons in La-La Land, and is turning out to be a big bust. The elder Ball still operates under the delusion that he knows more than team owners do.

New Orleans has Mardi Gras every winter. With La Loudmouth coming to town, an even worse circus is coming with him. The Pelicans might want to look into reserving a room at the nearest psychiatric hospital for LaVar.
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It's just a matter of time before the crybabies in New York's Valley of The Stupid start screaming for Mickey Calloway's head again.

The Mets have lost four of their last five after getting thumped by Atlanta, 12-3, on Monday in the first game of a three game series with the NL East leading Braves. Calloway is almost halfway through his second---and likely last, if this keeps up---season as manager. He's clearly in over his head, a case of the Wilpons going the cheap route to hire a manager after Terry Collins stepped down following the 2017 season. It's not helping, of course, that the Mets are dealing with another injury plague that won't go away, ace pitcher Noah Syndergaard being the latest victim over the weekend (hamstring strain).

The problem with the tin-foil-hat wearing clowns calling into talk radio is that they don't take into account the injuries. They want immediate results, spoiled as they've been for three or four generations by the Yankees' successes. If they don't get the results, they start scapegoating, which doesn't do wonders for anyone's confidence.

I wonder if Dr. Phil could do a week of shows at Citi Field......