ARLINGTON, Texas — The player with a definable role and obvious value provided to the team was packing his bags and readying himself to join a team that he shouldn’t be playing for given his performance.
Meanwhile, the future Hall of Famer, who’s presence on the team can’t be defined by empirical measure, but only nostalgia and nebulous concepts like clubhouse leadership, remained in the clubhouse, preparing himself for a rare occurrence in the starting lineup — something that likely won’t happen often in the coming days.
There was going to be a roster reckoning for the Seattle Mariners eventually.