A Grip on Sports: The M’s recent slippage has led to more frustration, something the outgoing Pac-12 members must have felt Monday as well

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Please don’t. Don’t disparage the messenger. But we have some bad news to share. On the heels of the Seahawks’ season-opening face-plant, we can report this Tuesday the Mariners are no longer among the top three in the wild-card race. Among the top three frustrating teams of the year? Certainly.

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• On a day when the sports world detoured through Colfax (more on that in a moment), the night was spent watching the M’s come up short against the Shohei Ohtani-less Angels at T-Mobile. Multiple times in fact. And had us second-guessing just about every decision Jerry Dipoto has made in the past couple months.

Frustration will do that, right? Or maybe it’s just watching Dominic Canzone hit.

The trade-deadline acquisition (along with second baseman and error machine Josh Rojas) had two late at-bats in Monday’s 8-5 loss to the Angels that were less than ideal.

The first came in a 3-3 tie in the eighth, when the lefthanded hitter led off the inning, was given two opportunities to reach base – L.A. hitting star Logan O’Hoppe misplayed an easy foul pop up – and still failed miserably, striking out on a hanging breaking ball.

The second came an inning later. The M’s had loaded the bases with no outs. A walk, a deep fly ball, heck, a high hopper off the plate might have ended it and pulled Seattle within a game of the A.L. West-leading Astros. But Jarred Kelenic, back after his self-inflicted stay on the injured list, struck out. Dylan Moore grounded into a force at the plate. And Canzone? He pulled a pitch a few inches off the plate outside to the first baseman for an easy putout.

The teams traded two-run home runs in the 10th – Julio Rodriguez’s a laser to center that put him in the 30 home run/30 stolen base club – before the M’s bullpen and defense melted down in the Angels’ three-run 11th.

Look, we’re not about to make Canzone the scapegoat here. But he and Rojas have not injected the spark Dipoto hoped when he traded the team’s closer, Paul Sewald, to get them. In fact, Canzone has regressed in Seattle (though his time with Arizona wasn’t productive either), highlighted by a meager .682 OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging).

And the loss of Sewald has begun to show, with the bullpen lacking the one shutdown guy he represented since the start of 2022.

The M’s overcame this in July August. In September, they haven’t. They are 3-8 in the month. They’ve slowly sunk in the West and the wild-card race. Last night, as 37,807 were ready to explode, they fizzled despite Rodriguez’s heroics. Again.

• There were a few fireworks in a Colfax courtroom yesterday. Read that sentence again – and we defy you not to smile.

The first thought that had to run through your head pertained to a speeding ticket, right? But no. An attorney for Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff made some unjustifiable arguments to Whitman County Superior Court judge Gary Libey, who saw them for what they were. Unjustifiable.

The 10 departing members of the soon-to-be-scattered conference wanted to change the existing rules on the two remaining ones, Monday’s plaintiff’s Washington State and Oregon State. But, as has played out in courtrooms all over America for a couple hundred years, a rural county judge made a simple, common-sense ruling.

No. Stop. You can’t have it both ways, Libey basically said. If the bylaws your organization has operated under have been enforced one way for years, you can’t just re-interpret them for convenience. And monetary gain.

Libey didn’t rule on who controls Pac-12 governance for the next few months, but in granting a temporary restraining order and halting Kliavkoff’s scheduled Wednesday board meeting, he indicated he felt WSU and OSU would prevail on that point.

Simple. Easy. Clean. The antithesis of what’s being going in the conference’s boardrooms recently.

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WSU: You want to delve first into the success on the field lately, or off? Let’s stay in Colfax. The S-R’s Amanda Sullender has an easy-to-understand news story on Libey’s decision as well as a short story on the judge himself. … But being that the courtroom was the center of the American sports universe yesterday – until Aaron Rodgers’ nationally televised injury – there is coverage from all over to pass along. Jon Wilner has his thoughts on the drama in the Mercury News. … John Canzano has his as well on his website. … Bill Oram in the Oregonian has a must-read column as well. … Nationally, The Athletic and CBS Sports covered the hearing. … OK, back to the on-field items. Greg Woods has his first look at Northern Colorado, the Big Sky program with an 0-2 record in Ed Lamb’s first year in Greeley. … Greg also takes a look back at the win over Wisconsin in his weekly rewind. … Receiver DT Sheffield, who joined WSU this season, has left the team. Greg has more in this story. … Greg also has a schedule update, as the Pac-2 showdown in Pullman on Sept. 23 will kick off at 4 p.m. on FOX. Let’s hope the Comcast/KAYU 28 spat is settled by then. … Does Washington State belong in the Power 5? Jake Dickert thinks so. As does this local writer. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, Wilner has his power rankings in the S-R. (And he has his weekly Mountain West ones as well.) … There are also other Pac-12 power rankings to pass along. A couple of them in fact. … Washington learned some things against Tulsa. … Oregon State will face San Diego State this week in Corvallis. Then the tough conference schedule begins. … Oregon hosts Hawaii, which is a welcome break after the tough win at Texas Tech. Then the Ducks play Colorado. … The first battle against Colorado State awaits Colorado coach Deion Sanders, someone the Rams considered before hiring Jay Norvell. … Whether or not Cam Rising returns against Weber State this week, Utah will have a new starting quarterback. … UCLA hosts North Carolina Central this week and Chip Kelly says the starters will play as usual. … USC has tried to build depth in its two blowouts. … Arizona State hosts Fresno State, which already has one win over a Power 5 school (and almost lost at home to EWU). … Jayden de Laura is really good or really bad. Sometimes in the same Arizona game. … In basketball news, Oregon has a new big man in town. … Finally, the New York Times recently looked at the Pac-12’s breakup and what that might mean to Olympic sports. … One of those powers, Stanford volleyball, hosts Nebraska this week.

Gonzaga: Two GU cross country runners swept the WCC’s weekly awards. That news leads off the S-R’s local briefs column for today.

EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, the Vandals defense knocked around Nevada even more than USC’s did. … Montana State will have to put its loss at South Dakota State – and the frustrating circumstances – behind it quickly. … Weber State is one of six Big Sky teams in the top 16 of this week’s top-25 FCS poll.

Preps: There were events Monday around the GSL. Dave Nichols has this roundup.

Mariners: The 8-5 defeat put a damper on Rodriguez’s historic night, when he joined Alex Rodriguez as the only Seattle members of the 30/30 club. … It also did the same on Kelenic’s return. We believe if Kelenic hadn’t kicked a water cooler and broken a bone, Sewald would still be in the bullpen and Canzone in Arizona. … Backup catcher Tom Murphy is still out.

Seahawks: At least the Hawks didn’t lose Geno Smith to a season-ending injury Sunday. That’s about the best that could be said about the Rams loss. It was bad. But just one game too. … There were injuries, enough at the offensive tackle spots Seattle is talking with 41-year-old Jason Peters about the possible Hall of Famer coming to town. … DK Metcalf and Pete Carroll had another talk.

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• You never know when you will have to make big decisions. Some you can see coming like a runaway freight train. Others are forced upon you unexpectedly. Sometime soon we will have to make one about our 12-year-old Doberdane Junior (named after you-know-who). The big fellow, probably the nicest, most-gentle dog we’ve ever had the privilege of sharing our life with, is struggling. The back hips are going and stairs, of which there are many in our house, are becoming a struggle. The train is reaching the station. But we want it to slow to a crawl. The ride has been too fulfilling to see end. Sadly, it will. Hate these days. Until later …