Melvin: “I don’t know that I wouldn’t admire it…”

Bob Melvin, when asked before the game if he anticipated the Mariners to budge on Yoenis Cespedes after he admired his homer last night, had this to say:

I don’t think so. You watch, and 90 percent of guys watch them, and it seems like the more stature they have, they watch it some. You could tell he caught himself. I don’t know that I wouldn’t admire it for a second, too. But you could see, he ran hard around the bases, and it wasn’t like it took him a half hour to run around the bases. I think they also understand over there this is a guy that’s learning a lot here at the big-league level. I don’t foresee that being a problem.

Well, after Cespedes struck out against Felix Hernandez in the first, he was hit by a pitch that brushed his shoulder on a 1-0 count in the fourth with two runners on base. The base runners would normally signal the question, Did he really mean to board another, then? But with a 7-0 lead at the time, it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.