For those wondering where Ken Griffey Jr. has been, there's photographic evidence he was at the ballpark today. The picture, by Getty Images, shows Griffey hugging Ichiro during batting practice. Of course, Griffey's presence was later confirmed in the ninth inning, when manager Don Wakamatsu called upon him to pinch-hit for Rob Johnson with one on and one in. It was Griffey's first plate appearance since May 23. It didn't go so well. Only a low throw by shortstop J.J. Hardy on the relay kept Griffey from grounding into a 4-6-3 double play.

The Mariners shook things up tonight after a 5-4 loss that dropped their record in one-run games to 6-13. Gone: Kanekoa Texeira and Jesus Colome. On their way: Sean White and Garrett Olson.

For the "con" point of view, here's Dave Cameron, breathing fire. Here's a more measured response from Jeff Sullivan.

I agree Colome is not much of a loss, despite the Mariners' fascination with his power arm. He's a career journeyman whose flaws always seem to reveal themselves. Texeira is a bit more surprising. My feeling is that as long as you've gone this far with him, you might as well go all the way. Then, next year, once his Rule 5 obligation to stay in the majors is gone, you can let him develop at the proper pace. It's not like this Mariners season is oozing with playoff possibilities at this point. And Texeira definitely showed the potential to be a good major-league pitcher down the road, and not a disaster right now. Certainly, the M's could afford to carry him as the last man on the pitching staff.

One upshot of dumping Texeira and Colome is that the M's now have two open spots on their 40-man roster, as Olson and White were already on it. Stay tuned.

White, 29, has appeared in four games since being optioned to AAA Tacoma on May 19. He has not allowed a run and only two hits in his appearances.

Olson, 26, is 2-5 with a 3.66 ERA in 12 games (six starts) with the Rainiers. In six relief appearances, he has posted a 2.38 ERA with 17 strikeouts in 11 1/3 innings, and three walks. As a starter he was 1-4, 4.08.

As for tonight's game, Wakamatsu had praise for Doug Fister's perseverance. And deservedly so. I thought this game was nearly as impressive for Fister as the game's in which he coasted. He gave up three homers and two doubles and yet still fought his way to last 7 2/3 innings, and was excellent after giving up the two homers in the fourth.

"I thought he competed all night,'' Wakamatsu said. "You look at that outing, there's three balls that got up in the zone, but he knew our bullpen was short, and continued to battle and gave us 7 2/3 when we didn't have anybody in the bullpen.

"The thing I want to give him credit for is that his velocity was down a little bit. You look at a young pitcher that's gone deep into games as many starts as he has, you're going to go through a little bit of a dead-arm. I thought he had that, and to go be able to pitch through that against a good-hitting ballclub and give us the length we needed...We were down to one hit at the end to tie it or win it.

"I think he might have topped out at 91 once. He pitched a lot at 86 and 87 miles per hour. The one curveball, just the bite on his pitches was a little off today. He finds a way to compete out there and get through."

Dead arm or not, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was impressed with Fister.

"He's got great stuff. I think you can see that. He's got a great changeup, a heck of a curve ball, and a nice little slider. His fastball, he locates it really well, so he is tough. Fortunately for us, we got that one inning in. He made some mistakes and we got ahold of them pretty good.''

I asked Fister about the dead arm.

"I'm just going out there and pitching through anything, everything, and just not thinking about anything but the task at hand,'' he said.

He added, "It was a tough night. I went out there and didn't have my best stuff. I had to work and constantly adjust. They're a great lineup, and I just had to keep the ball down."

He said all three homers were on pitches he left up.