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A GRIP ON SPORTS
There have been some weird baseball injuries over the years. Joba Chamberlain on a trampoline with his son. Josh Outman throwing up and straining a muscle. Luke Scott pulling a hamstring in a home run trot. But last night I may have outdone them all. Read on.
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• While trying to force my dog to move off the bed, I thinking I strained my oblique. Yep. Injured while lying down. How Franklin Gutierrez of me. Speaking of Gutierrez, to Mariners' oft-injured but highly talented centerfielder, he could be back soon. Which is the M's way of saying "heck, we really don't know if he'll ever play again." At least being on the disabled list now is a blessing. See, the M's are in their "let's-play-just-a-couple-times-a-week" phase of their schedule. And that is hard to understand. Look at their schedule so far. In April, they played 29 games – in 30 days. Their only day off was Tax Day. But May, that's a different story. They have five off days in May, including four in the first 13 days of the month. That's just plain odd. And there is something else weird about their schedule this month. They play 26 games. Only nine of them are at home. That means – let me check my math – 65.4 percent of their games this month are on the road. Shouldn't it be a bit closer to 50/50? So not only has their schedule been herky-jerky since the season began, the power that be decided to make them travel the countryside this month, visiting exotic locations like New York, Cleveland and San Diego (if this were an SAT question you would have to identify which of those three cities don't belong in the group). Not only are the Mariners struggling to find their footing in the American League West, they are trying to do it with constantly shifting sand under their feet.
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• WSU: We actually found a decent amount of links today, including a couple right here on the blog. Christian Caple was awoken from his off-season nap by the alarm clock that is the Pullman police blotter (been there ... no, not on the blotter but I have had to respond to it in the past; sorry, hope I didn't scare you). Defensive lineman Toni Pole's name was on it from over the weekend. Christian also has a post this morning with a couple links and a commitment. ... By the way, saw that offensive lineman Jake Rodgers was tweeting yesterday. Twitter is banned for active WSU football squad members. ... Bud Withers reviewed WSU's spring practice on his blog. ... Colorado's quarterback showed up on the Boulder police blotter.
• Gonzaga: Mark Few is not going to coach in international competition this summer. Too much to do here.
• Preps: There was plenty of playoff action for a Monday. You can read about it in our roundup.
• Mariners: As you might have guessed from my lead-in today, the Mariners were off yesterday, en route to a series in New York. Felix Hernandez will match up with C.C. Sabathia this evening, one of those matchups you don't want to miss. ... Geoff Baker is back on the M's beat for the Times after his mother's passing and has a blog post on how well the team did while he was gone. ... Michael Saunders has found his spot. It's atop the lineup. ... Eric Wedge still believes in Jesus Montero.
• Seahawks: Which of the Hawks' rookies will make an impact this season? Dave Boling has a guess. But I would assume Pete Carroll has a better idea. ... The Hawks did make some roster moves yesterday.
• Sounders: Guess who is in last place in the MLS Western Conference? If you answered "Sounders" you would be wrong for the first time this season.
• Sonics: After all the machinations of recent weeks, it looks as if the saga of the Kings, Sacramento, Seattle and the NBA might finally – finally – decided this week. That would make the rabid Sonic fans either happy or sad. But Art Thiel may have a way to make everyone happy.
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• A pretty good Tuesday for mid May if you ask me (and I always ask me). No, we're not talking about the weather, though that is fine too. We're talking about the content of the post today. Until later ...
