Danny Cortes steps on to the stage at last….

   Tampa Bay overtook the Yankees tonight as the leaders in the exciting AL East race with a win over the Mariners 5-3 in front of 17,840 fans. This is not much of a story unless you happen to be hoping the Mariners lose 100 games this year so that Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong may be forced out after this long sad season. And since that is as unlikely as the owner Hiroshi Yamauchi showing up for a game, then the only interesting thing that happened was the debuts of a couple of other youngsters hoping to make the club next year.

   Of course I am not talking about Matt Mangini or Greg Hallman or Mike Carp or even the firm  known as Smoak, Saunders,Moore and Tuiasosopo. I am referring to the premier of the  Dan Cortes and the less heralded Anthony Varvaro show which arrived the same week as the remake of  Hawaii 5-0 and was worth the wait.

   Anthony Varvaro was impressive in the 8th , but the ooos and aaahs of course were mostly for the gunslinger Danny Cortes. I like Dan Cortes, he is an animal. The guy loves to compete and he has the arm to go with his good looks and strong build. We are not talking about David” twinkle-toes” Aardsma or Garett” the professor” Olson my friends, Dan Cortes is a jock, a stud, a bona-fide purebred in a world full of   nerdy guys with laptops. And tonight we got a little taste of the red meat loving , killer-instinct of this pitcher even though by his own admission he didn’t throw as hard as he could only topping-out at 98 on the radar!

   Anyway besides these two guys it was more of the same as the Rays played like a first-place club taking advantage of opportunities given to them like the 5th inning, to put-away a last-place club that lacks the killer-instinct and thus will have to take its place at the rear of the pack while the Alpha-dogs drive forward to glory.

  But for tonight I was glad to see that we may have another lead-dog to team-up with King Felix for the future in the person of Danny Cortes! No disrespect to Varvaro intended as he looked good too, but I have that howling in the wind type sense about Cortes that even an old wolf  like me can smell! http://jeffsmariners.com