BUT WE'VE BEEN WORKING ON OUR NIGHT MOVES? >>>

LAST MINUTE UPDATE: In late-breaking, heart-stopping, huge bummer news, Weekly Volcano's newest crush, Kyle Seager, has just been promoted to the Seattle Mariners. Along with rendering much of the below blog out of date, Seager has also broken our hearts. Here we were, twelve games into a budding relationship, and wammo: he's gone. Gone without so much as a Dear John letter on the dresser. Once again we're left sobbing, forced to pick up the pieces of what could have been a great relationship. 

Tear, sniffle. This one's tough. We better shut off cellphone before we make any calls we regret.     

After nearly a week-long sabbatical where we thought more about beers, brats and bikinis then we did about baseball, we've returned.

Of course, getting back into the swing of things is hard when you've missed a week's worth of ballgames. A week of Tacoma Rainiers' (42-44) ballgames that featured the return of Mike Carp, a clutch performance by Josh Lueke and crapload of holiday fireworks.  We missed a week of ballgames that included a competent performance by starting pitcher Luke French, the continued success of newbie Kyle Seager and a game where Charlie Haeger, once again, issued some walks.  A week of baseball that saw the Rainiers climb steadily towards .500. We missed a week of ballgames that helped more reputable bloggers run circles around us coverage- wise. 

Yep, we missed a lot of things in the last week. Most importantly, the ballgames.

But lets not dwell on what we've missed. Let's focus on what's ahead.

Tomorrow, myself and maybe a couple of other Weekly Volcano staffers will be heading to Cheney Stadium to participate in the Tasty Thursday festivities. This effectively means you could see some of the best Rainiers Minute coverage of the season. We're talking fan interviews. We're talking a post-game blog. We're talking up-to-the-minute tweets. We're talking me spending way too much money on beer. We're talking making faces at Mike Curto in the pressbox. We're talking everything short of player interviews, a privilege long lost to us after an unfortunate incident in the locker room....

But still! The Weekly Volcano live at Cheney Stadium. You can't get more exciting than that.

Notes ...

-As mentioned above, Weekly Volcano favorite Mike Carp is back in a Tacoma Rainiers' uniform. Now before you get too excited and, say, order up another Carp tattoo, we have to tell you something. We here at the Volcano had a long discussion on how to handle the return of Carp. After some serious thought, we've decided to downplay his return to Tacoma.

Carp is a damn, damn good player. A damn good player who some argue wasn't given enough playing time up in Seattle. While it warms our hearts to see him once again swinging a bat in Cheney, trotting out homeruns in Cheney, laughing and lovin' in Cheney, we here at the Weekly Volcano choose not to get excited.  We think it's only a matter of time before another call-up. And we can't let ourselves fall in love again. A breakup like the last one could kill us.

-Did you hear? Mike Carp hit a homerun in his first at-bat back in a Rainiers uniform! He was also ejected from a game! OMG, OMG, OM- No. Sorry. We've promised ourselves we wouldn't do this. Enough Carp talk. Let's move our attention to other dreamboats. Mainly, Kyle Seager, who is hitting a mind-blowing .455 in 55 at bats.

-Conor Dowley of the Mariners Farm Review recently posted his list of the top twenty prospects in the Mariners' system. Five Rainiers players made the list: Kyle Seager, Blake Beavan, Alex Liddi, Dan Cortes and Josh Lueke. While the statistics Dowley uses to compose this list are surely over our heads, we do appreciate the breakdown. We also appreciate Dowley's honesty when he says, "Would I normally think of Alex Liddi, Blake Beavan and Erasmo Ramirez (AA) as top-ten guys in a system? Hell no." We know it hurts, Rainiers fans. But at least he's honest.

-In more general news, the Rainiers are hanging in there. Eighty-six games into the season, the Rainiers sit at second place in the PCL Pacific North division, a daunting but not insurmountable nine games behind the first place Reno Aces. Nine games is a lot, but there's still some baseball left to be played. Plus, it heats up like a mo' fo' down in Reno this time of year, so the Aces are sure to grow sluggish.

Tonight is the final game of the series against the Colorado Sky Sox. The game starts at 6:05 p.m. Tomorrow is Tasty Thursday. An extra special Tasty Thursday because the Weekly Volcano will be on hand to booze and cruise. See you tomorrow, baseball fans.  

LINK: The "Rainiers Minute" collection