Outside of Bud Selig’s ham-handed attempt to force an interleague rivalry between the Mariners and Padres, two teams separated by a distance longer than the Great Barrier Reef, the Mariners have been lacking in good old-fashioned rivalry for the past decade or so. Most of this can be ascribed to the team’s breathtaking incompetence during the majority of this stretch; it’s hard to be rivals with a team that willfully rosters not one but three sub-replacement-level catchers in a single season (the 2010 Cerberus of Adam Moore-Rob Johnson-Josh Bard), DH’s a 32-year-old Jack Cust (THREE home runs in 2011), or counts Stephen Pryor, who pitched 7.
The Mariners have a new rivalry
