Two negatives make a positive, right?
A GRIP ON SPORTS
There was an old song sung by The Carpenters that included the lyrics, "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down." So what happens when Monday is a rainy day? Do two downs make an up? All I know is I'm feeling a bit low watching it pour outside my window right now when there aren't a lot of links falling from the Internet sky. Read on.
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• Other things that get me down: Bad Mariner losses (of which Sunday's was one) and long drives (which I also had on Sunday evening). One of those you care about, the other, not so much, right? What I find interesting about the Mariners' 7-2 loss to the Blue Jays (before I go any further, you want to talk M's, right, not my car trip?) was not the big zero they had in the hit column the 14 times runners were in scoring position. No, what interests me is how the poor Mariner offense is going to affect Jason Vargas' Cy Young campaign. Once again, the crafty lefty was more than good enough to get a win, going six innings and yielding just two runs. But with all the flailing that went on for the Mariners with runners poised to score, Vargas needed to throw a shutout to win. And who knows if he had left with a 1-0 lead – Chone Figgins opened the game with a home run – if the bullpen would have held it. All I can say is my Vargas-for-Cy-Young campaign is off to a slow start. Maybe it's time for some guerilla marketing. How about a flash mob at his next Safeco start? God knows the group would stand out there among the 35,000 empty seats.
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• Washington State: We were surprised there was no blog past from Christian Caple early this morning, but we didn't let it phase us. As we started to run down the Pac-12 links, we paused for a second, did some looking around and we found it. Turns out, we had started too early today and it hadn't appeared yet. But now we can link it for you. And we can also link Christian's story on the conference's women's golf tournament at Palouse Ridge, won, like the men's was, by California. ... The Sporting News is predicting big things for WSU under Mike Leach (well down in this column). ... The Pac-12 blog on ESPN.com summarizes the weekend's spring scrimmages and looks at the NFL draft.
• Gonzaga: Had a chance to see recent commit Luke Meikle play this weekend. One thing that impressed me: He's got red hair. Always like those guys. I used to have red hair.
• Idaho: It's looking more and more as if the WAC may be out of existence by the fall of 2013. If that's the case, what happens to the Vandals?
• Whitworth: The Pirates finished up a sweep of Whitman yesterday and won the NWC baseball title. They are headed for their first NCAA Division III tournament.
• Mariners: The good news: Seattle had 14 base runners in scoring position. The bad news: The M's never got a hit while they were there. That and a late bullpen meltdown added up to a 7-2 defeat. ... Even worse news: George Sherrill has to have Tommy John surgery and, at 35, his career might be over.
• Seahawks: The draft ended Saturday. GM John Schneider (left) then spent Sunday defending his staff's work over the past three days. The Hawks didn't do the conventional thing, starting with their first pick, so the so-called draft experts ripped them pretty bad (as our poll shows, you folks weren't all that happy either). Well, not just those guys. Steve Kelley got into them a bit as well. Though Jim Moore defends them.
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• Don't let the weather get you down. Tomorrow could be nice. Of course, Wednesday could suck again. Until later ...
