Shannon Drayer dropped a bomb that’s gonna have every single one of us in the Emerald City buzzing: she’s making a serious case for J.P. Crawford to be a future inductee into the Mariners Hall of Fame. Yeah, you heard that right. Our guy J.P.! Drayer looked back at his incredible career and all his accomplishments, laying out a truly convincing argument for him taking his rightful place among the M’s legends. That’s the kind of talk that makes the off-season almost bearable, knowing a Mariner we’ve watched bleed green and blue could get that ultimate recognition.
Hot Stove’s Already Firing: Familiar Faces and League Drama
Away from the T-Mobile Park legacy discussions, the baseball world is still spinning with plenty of news. Our old friend, All-Star infielder Ketel Marte, now with the Arizona Diamondbacks, is already a hot commodity on the trade market. The Baltimore Orioles are reportedly among the teams who’ve called the D-backs about snagging him. Remember watching him in Seattle? Now he’s got teams knocking down doors. Also drawing serious interest is Kris Bubic, a name generating a lot of buzz from a wide variety of teams looking for a high-upside acquisition. Across the league, the Los Angeles Angels locked down catcher Tyler Heineman for a year at $1.2 million to avoid arbitration.
And then there’s the wild trial involving Guardians relievers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz. The focus right now is on Clase’s texts and whether he was speaking in code to bettors about cockfighting, which is apparently legal in the Dominican Republic. What’s really raising eyebrows is how often “Zunino,” that being *then* Guardians catcher Mike Zunino, pops up in these alleged cockfighting conversations. Talk about a curveball! Meanwhile, down in the Arizona Fall League, the Peoria Javelinas absolutely crushed the Surprise Saguaros with an 8-3 win, securing their eighth title. The talent down there is always insane, and it’s cool to see who’s dominating.
Bilibili Gaming Shocks the World at Worlds Finals!
Okay, if you spent your Saturday like some of us here at Seattle On Tap, you were glued to the League of Legends Worlds Finals. And man, what a show! China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) went up against South Korea’s Gen.G Esports in the heavily anticipated 16th Worlds Finals at the Barclays Center, and it was epic. BLG had a colossal mountain to climb just to get there, first taking down tournament favorites Hanwha Life Esports in a do-or-die best-of-three, then sweeping undefeated Dplus Kia in the quarterfinals. But the real stunner? They then faced the legendary Faker-led T1, who are 6-time Worlds champions and had never lost to a Chinese team in a best-of-five series at Worlds. BLG didn’t care about history, beating them in thrilling fashion 3-1!
In the Finals, Gen.G suffocated BLG in Game 1, but BLG punched back hard with an incredible 53-minute win in Game 2, evening the series. They just carried that momentum, alongside some absolutely absurd playmaking from their support ON (who was absolutely ROBBED of Finals MVP, by the way!), all the way to a 3-1 gentleman’s sweep! Think about it: they were one loss from elimination, had to go through *all four* Korean teams in the tournament, and they just ran the table. They became the first Chinese team to lift the Summoner’s Cup in five long years! THEY FINALLY DID IT!
So yeah, a lot to unpack from a wild weekend. But seriously, J.P. Crawford in the HOF? That’s the kind of talk that gets you through the baseball offseason, Seattle. What a career, what a Mariner. Now, let the hot stove season really begin, and let’s see what happens next for our M’s. Go M’s!
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Lookout Landing.
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