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As the weather warms up in Seattle, the local Kraken hockey team has been extremely busy. While the Florida Panthers lifted Lord Stanley’s Cup a week ago, the Kraken are in mid-season mode. After acquiring Mason Marchment from the Dallas Stars a few days ago, the Kraken shipped Andre Burakovsky to the Chicago Blackhawks for forward Joe Velino. With free agency still on the horizon, Marchment’s a big acquisition for the Kraken. Seattle, which has stockpiled draft choices in recent years, sent a fourth-round pick in the upcoming draft (which ironically, originally belonged to the Stars) and a third-round pick in 2026 to Dallas. With Ron Francis bumped up to team president, Jason Botterill’s now the man in charge when it comes to player movement. The new GM wanted the 6’5 212 Marchment for his size and presence in front of the net. “I think Mason has a unique combination of size, skill and strength,” Botterill said in an interview, Thursday. “He works well down in the corners an...

  After a costly sweep at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Seattle Mariners rebounded with a sweep of their own versus the Cleveland Guardians this weekend at T-Mobile Park. J.P. Crawford celebrated his first Father’s Day as a father, with a second inning grand slam home run leading the M’s to a 6-0 victory yesterday afternoon. Emerson Hancock threw one of his best games as a Mariner holding the visitors to two hits over seven innings. Hancock struckout four and walked one to improve his record to 3-2. Randy Arozarena had an eventful game without garnering an official at-bat. The M’s right-fielder walked three times, stole two bases, scored two runs and was hit by a pitch. Arozarena’s tied with former Mariner Ty France (now with the Twins) for the American League lead in hit by pitches. The Mariners struck for five runs in the second inning. Walks to Arozarena and Mitch Garver sandwiched around Rowdy Tellez’s double loaded the bases with one out. Third baseman M...

  The Seattle Mariners ended a five-game losing streak yesterday afternoon in Anaheim, and the visitors did it in style. George Kirby was the star of the game in the 3-2 Mariners win over the Angels. Kirby, who missed spring training and the first month of the regular season with an injury, threw his best game of the season (and perhaps his major league career) allowing only two hits in seven innings and notching a career-high 14 strikeouts. Kirby matches Miami’s Max Meyer for most strikeouts by a pitcher in a game this season Matt Brash and Andre Munoz each struckout two batters for a total of 18 Angel whiffs. Munoz recovered from two blown saves last weekend against Minnesota, with his 18 th save of the year, The Mariners entered yesterday afternoon’s tilt with ten losses in their last 13 games, six of those losses by only one or two runs. With the victory, the M’s improve to 33-31 on the season and pick up a game on the Houston Astros, who dropped a 4-2 decision to the Cl...

  State of the Mariners. (Hint, it’s not very good). Memorial Day is a benchmark for some baseball observers to see how their team is doing. If the team is playing good ball and hovering around the top of the division that’s a harbinger that the club is having a good year. Of course, there are exceptions. The Detroit Tigers last year, were below .500 well into July, but made a run to the playoffs. Then there’s the Seattle Mariners. The Pacific Northwest’s favorite team started May 26 (Memorial Day) with a 29-22 record and despite a 5-3 loss at Houston, the M’s still led the Astros by a game and a half in the American League Western Division. Yesterday afternoon at Safeco Field, the Mariners dropped a 4-3 decision to the Baltimore Orioles before an enthusiastic crowd of 27,000. The M’s had taken a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the fifth off MVP candidate Cal Raleigh’s 24 th home run of the season. Raleigh had also driven in the Mariners’ run in the third inning. His two-o...

  In a somewhat unexpected move, the Seattle Kraken fired head coach Dan Bylsma after one season. The Kraken also announced that general manager Ron Francis has been promoted to President of Hockey Operations and assistant general manager Jason Botterill has been promoted to General Manager. At yesterday’s press conference which included owners Samantha Holloway and Todd Leiweke along with Francis and Botterill, there weren’t any grand statements about Bylsma’s short tenure in Seattle, but there were a few hints. ``I didn’t like the way we playing,’’ Francis admitted. ``I didn’t like the structure, and felt we needed a change.’’ Later in the press conference, Francis noted he wasn’t happy with the Kraken’s defensive alignment and that, ``we were spending too much time in our own zone.’’ On Monday, Francis issued a press release stating, ``We thank Dan for his commitment and the energy he brought to our organization over the past four years at the NHL and AHL levels. After a...

  The Seattle Mariners won their third consecutive series, beating the Cincinnati Reds in a wild-and-wooly afternoon game, 11-7, in ten innings at the Great American ballpark. A total of 39 players were used in the game including eight Seattle pitchers and seven Cincinnati hurlers. Randy Arozarena hit a game tying homer in the ninth inning and drove in two more runs in a four-run tenth inning. J.P. Crawford had the game-winning hit for the M’s earlier in the frame. Crawford hit a slow grounder that Reds’ shortstop Elly De La Cruz had no play on. Called the `most exciting player in baseball’ by some, De La Cruz made two errors in the game and had trouble getting to a couple of other balls. The Mariners (10-9) now continue their first long homestand of the season with series in Toronto and Boston. Seattle trails Texas (a team it swept in its most recent homestand) by two games in the American League West. The M’s trailed 2-0 after an inning, took a 5-3 lead into the eighth...

A disappointing season came to an end for the Seattle Krakens last night as they suffered a 6-5 defeat to the Los Angeles Kings at Climate Pledge Arena. The Kraken, who finish the season with a 35-41-6 mark, went down fighting, scoring three third period goals after the playoff-bound Kings had taken a 6-2 lead. After the game, season-ending awards were presented and to the surprise of no one, Joey Daccord copped two major awards as the Kraken netminder was the best player on the team for the second consecutive year. While Daccord didn’t have a great night between the pipes, he copped the Pete Muldoon Award presented to the team’s Most Valuable Player along with the Three Stars award, tabulated by how many times a player’s mentioned in the three-stars competition. Brandon Montour, a first-year Kraken, was selected Fan Favoite, of course voted by the fans. A free-agent signee from the Stanley Cup winning Florida Panthers in the off-season, Montour scored his 16 th goal of the se...