In the top of the 5th inning against the Red Sox on Friday, Mike Cameron took a Jason Vargas pitch off the wall in left field.  Michael Saunders fielded the ball and threw towards second base, but overthrew cutoff man Jack Wilson.  The ball came into second base a little bit wide on the third base side and Chone Figgins made no effort to track it down.  As the throw rolled towards Justin Smoak near first base, Cameron made an aggressive move to successfully reach third base.

Whether or not Figgins could have actually made a play on the throw didn’t matter.  Manager Don Wakamatsu took exception with the complete lack of visible effort and pulled him from the game.  The two reportedly got into a very heated discussion in the dugout before players and coaches started to get between them, at which point things got a little messy.  Jose Lopez, who initially stepped in as a peacemaker, found himself in the middle of the fracas, with Russell Branyan charging in as an aggressor as well. 

When this was going down I wasn’t watching the game, but found myself pretty excited as the reports of an incident in the Mariners dugout started coming down the line via Twitter.  After tracking down a little bit of video and reading the early accounts I thought I’d let it digest a while as I went about my business.  I was disconnected from Mariner baseball for the entire weekend.  The weather has been great here in the northwest and the Oregon Brewers Festival was in town.

Tonight I watched the game and read through everything the beat had to say and some fan reaction as well, and after going through all that and letting it sit the last couple days I still can’t say I have much of an opinion.  Given the tight lipped nature of the organization we don’t know a whole lot beyond what I wrote above.  Figgins and Wakamatsu got into an argument and that’s about it.

My initial reaction was one of surprise that Figgins was made an example of after we’ve seen so many idiotic blunders from this team in the last week or two, but after reading Wak’s comments and thinking about it a bit I think I can see the difference between, say, all the baserunning mistakes where players may have been overly aggressive (and eventually over cautious after a few errors were made) and Figgins’ non-play, where he just stood near the bag with his hands at his side looking indifferent.

The bigger story seems to be Wak’s hold on his players.  Some players were reportedly upset with Wak for forcing Ken Griffey Jr. into retirement, and this isn’t the first time Figgins has been publicly at odds with his new manager. And then there’s the idea that Russell Branyan’s curious acquisition was made in large part to inject a powerful pro-Wak presence into the clubhouse, which is interesting.  I don’t think any of this means anything right now, but it’s something to monitor a little more closely going forward.  Wak, along with Griffey and Mike Sweeney, was often cited as one of the major reasons Seattle’s clubhouse culture transformed for the better last season, but you would never guess that right now.  Even with Griffey and Sweeney away from the team right now, I think it’s safe to use this opportunity to again point out that winning keeps players happy and together more than anything else.

I realize that this is already old news and the Mariners have looked good since, but I’d like to read what you guys have to say about this now that the initial excitement has died down.

A couple other notes:

• Shawn Kelley is reportedly throwing again and is on his way back to the Mariner bullpen.  I was beginning to worry considering he’s been out for a month and has a history of serious elbow issues.  Good news.
• Michael Pineda continues to destroy minor league hitters, striking out 11 in 5 innings in his latest outing (the night of the dugout scuffle).  We called for Pineda to be bumped up to AAA after his domination of AA hitters in hopes that better hitters would force him to even out his game, but it doesn’t look like AAA hitters are up to the challenge.  Pineda may have learned everything he can from the minor leagues at this point.
• The Angels acquired Dan Haren from the Diamondbacks in exchange for a surprisingly skimpy haul.  The Angels control Haren through 2012 with an option for 2013.  The AL West just got a little tougher for the next couple years.