While I was at Clusterfest, watching comedians ranging from Kevin Hart to Sarah Silverman to Chris Hardwick to Natasha Leggero to Moshe Kasher to T.J. Miller (while still being able to catch a hip hop set from Ice Cube), the Mariners back in Seattle played a baseball game.

Taylor Motter hit a grand slam in the first, Danny Valencia had 5 RBI (including a 3-run homer in the third), and the Mariners ran away with it against the Rays, 12-4.

Funny coincidence alert:  Motter came from the Rays organization; he was beyond pleased with how this game went.

Also:  Danny Farquhar now pitches for the Rays’ bullpen, and gave up 4 runs.

Also:  Brad Miller had an error while playing second base, in the first inning, that led to 5 of those runs being unearned.

In Neverending Mariners Injury News:  Nelson Cruz was back and IN the lineup, with just a bruised hand, in spite of some dude on Twitter trying to tell me he broke his hamate bone and would be out 4-6 weeks.  Weird that a guy with 17 Tweets since December of 2016 and 9 total followers wouldn’t have the pulse of the Mariners clubhouse!

In Real Neverending Mariners Injury News:  Jean Segura is on the DL with a high ankle sprain.  It’s just the 10-day variety, but Dipoto is saying this could go as long as 2 months.  Meaning Segura likely won’t be back until August.  Which, if you’re keeping score, means AFTER the Trade Deadline.  Of course, miracles do happen from time to time, so maybe he comes back early.  Either way, I highly doubt Segura gets traded this season.

So, in a flurry of moves made yesterday, Casey Lawrence was rewarded for his masterful 5-inning relief performance of Yovani Gallardo by being sent back to Tacoma.  What a dick move!  First with Emilio Pagan (after his 4-inning relief performance a little while back) and now this!  Lawrence, to his credit (because he didn’t look like much of anything of value when we brought him in), has been a fabulous innings-eating long reliever this season, and I hope he gets a chance to come back up.

To make up for the losses, the Mariners called up a couple of Tylers.  Tyler Cloyd (a relief pitcher who is the epitome of a 30 year old journeyman, having bounced around 4 different organizations, as well as a brief stint in Korea) and Tyler Smith (an infielder who made his Major League debut last night, subbing in for Cano when the game was out of reach; he hit a double in his only at bat).

To make room on the 40-man, the Mariners moved Ryan Weber to the 60-day DL, and DFA’d someone named Andrew Alpin.

Getting back to that Casey Lawrence thing, and how much of a drag it is, because it’s all Gallardo’s fault that he was needed to go five innings in that game and save the rest of the bullpen in the first place, Christian Bergman went 6 innings last night, giving up just 2 runs.  He’s looking more and more like a guy we can keep around in this rotation if/when everyone else gets healthy.  And, you know Miranda and Paxton aren’t going anywhere.  Felix is set to do a rehab assignment on June 6th, so he’s close to being back; that’s four pitchers.  If we can get Kuma or Smyly going, I think it’s adios to Gallardo!  Unfortunately, we’re at least another month away from that, so don’t get too excited.

Gaviglio goes tonight.  He can make the Gallardo situation go away even sooner with some more quality outings.  Pray for Gaviglio.  Pray for us all!