REJOICE! We can watch all Mariner home games in HD starting tomorrow night on channel 376. I am sooooooo excited and looking forward to watching the resurgent M's in HD. Thursday can't come any sooner.        

Snelling was in the lineup only because Beltre had a stiff neck and Grover had already made up his mind to give Ibanez the day off.

This according to the P-I "When facing left-hander Randy Johnson, opposing managers usually want to put as many right-handed hitters into the lineup as possible. The Mariners had two left-handers in Thursday's lineup. One, Ichiro Suzuki, plays against everybody. The other, Chris Snelling, started because the Mariners were out of options.

Manager Mike Hargrove already had determined he was giving Raul Ibanez the night off. And with Adrian Beltre's neck pain keeping him off he field, the Mariners didn't have any place else to turn.

"With Beltre out, one of the left-handers (Ibanez or Snelling) was going to have to start," said Hargrove, who used his spare outfielder, Willie Bloomquist, as his third baseman. "I felt having him in the lineup made us better defensively."

Snelling hasn't been up from the minor leagues for long, but already the routine is that he doesn't hit much against left-handers. He came into Thursday with just one of his 13 at-bats against lefties, and he was lifted for rookie pinch hitter T.J. Bohn against lefty reliever Ron Villone on Wednesday"

Snelling won't get another AB against a LHP all year with Grover still managing. Sad