Good day

Any day that involves Paris Hilton being dragged to jail is already off to a great start- coming off a draft that seemed to involve common sense is just icing on the cake. While I certainly claim to know nothing about the draft, the pick of Aumont looks good. The fear among all of us was to see the Front Office pull a "Morrow"-

Mor·row (môr'ō, mŏr'ō) noun

1. The following day: resolved to set out on the morrow.
2. The time immediately subsequent to a particular event.
3. The complete misuse of a resource in an attempt to cover up a previous, egregious error

Ok, so I made that last part up. But the point is the team did the right thing in avoiding the temptation to make a quick, college reliever-type pick and instead looked at the big picture. We criticize the front office at times, so when they make a good choice we should acknowledge it- good job Bavasi and company.

As time goes on, I think most fans realize the M's face a bit of an uphill struggle to make the playoffs. The Angels are quite good and have a loaded farm system. The A's have pitching, a smart GM and a tendency to win in the second half. The Mariners have a team constructed in such a way to make easy upgrades fairly difficult. Combine this with a manager who would never be described as "creative" and the team faces some challenges if they want to be seen as competitive all summer. They've played well lately against some pretty lousy teams. The next few weeks will show if they really are a good team, or just better than last year.

The best part about this team right now, playoff chances aside, is they are vastly more entertaining. We have actually seen some comebacks, we feel reasonably confident every time someone other than Weaver is starting, and the bullpen is almost lights-out these days. So the team is better than last year, and that's worth something. But they are going to need to start taking care of business against some good teams before I get excited about a playoff run.