Mariners Moose Tracks, 7/9/22: Andrés Muñoz, All-Star Starters, and Mitch Garver

Good morning everyone and happy Saturday! The dream stretch continues in Seattle and we’ve got the links to get your day going.

In Mariners news...

• Get your rush of euphoria again.

• Shannon Drayer wrote about the emergence of Andrés Muñoz. I wonder how long it will be until Muñoz becomes the team’s official closer for likely years to come.
• In case you were wondering how impressive that throw from Julio really was...

• Erik Swanson had a very good reason for not being available last night!

Around the league...

• Jurickson Profar had a scary collision with C.J. Abrams on Thursday and was carted off the field. Both players are OK, but Profar was placed on the 7-day concussion IL as the team continues to monitor him.
• Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera were selected All-Stars due to the first use of “legacy selections” in MLB. Not sure how I feel about it, mostly because number of All-Star selections are usually used after a player retires to measure their career.
• Major League Baseball announced the starters for the All-Star Game. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, Ty France lost out to Vlad Guerrero, Jr. for the first base spot.
• MLB and the MLBPA continue to discuss the possibility of an international draft, but the two sides are (shockingly) on very different pages when it comes to how it will happen.

• Byron Buxton is such an incredible player.

• The Rangers will play the rest of their season without their starting catcher.

• The Orioles and the Angels: two incredible stories for completely separate reasons.

• The Angels made some sort of devilish deal when they landed both Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, and the universe is forcing them to endlessly pay for it.