Mariners’ Taijuan Walker Tweets About Losing His Number, Fueling Trade Speculation

Sep 4, 2013; Kansas City, MO, USA; Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Taijuan Walker (27) delivers a pitch in the first inning against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

Is Taijuan Walker being dangled as trade bait by the Mariners? Who knows. Taijuan Walker certainly has his suspicions though. And Friday those suspicions were stoked, by something as innocent as a routine press conference.

Friday the Mariners introduced two of their newly-acquired relative-low-price veterans, Corey Hart and Logan Morrison. As has become customary during these introductory press conferences, the players’ uniforms were displayed, complete with official numbers.

There behind the podium hung the two jerseys, Hart’s #27 and Morrison’s #20. The #27 Hart jersey looked suspiciously familiar to Taijuan Walker, and with good reason. Last year that was HIS jersey.

Walker didn’t wait to find out what was going on with the jersey. He went straight to Twitter. The since-deleted tweet:

Mariners PR realized it had a situation on its hands. An unannounced number-switch, an irritated player and suspicions of an impending trade. What to do?

Simple: claim Taijuan Walker asked for his number to be changed. Even though his tweet clearly indicated that he had no idea a number-change was coming.

Then tell Taijuan Walker to shut the heck up.

Oh and remind everyone YOU SIGNED ROBINSON FRICKING CANO!!!

There, it’s all fixed now. There should be no more trade rumors about Taijuan Walker. The Mariners are absolutely not a raging toxic-smoke-spewing tire fire of an organization.

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