SEATTLE — There are no more pages in the regular-season calendar to flip, and for the Mariners currently on the injured list, the clock is ticking.
“Time is running out,” general manager Justin Hollander said Thursday, after running through a list of players on the IL, few of whom are close to returning after clean and easy rehab processes.
Headlining Hollander’s rundown were Matt Brash and Donovan Walton, who find themselves in similar holding patterns. Brash has been out since June 10 with a right lat strain — his second stint on the IL of the year — and while his buildup through August seemed promising, he’s been having problems recently with tightness after his throwing sessions.
So, 19 days after his first bullpen session in Houston, Brash was due to undergo another MRI to determine what all is going on.
“This has sort of been a recurring theme with this specific injury,” Hollander said. “Mostly, he feels good when he’s throwing flat ground and even in the ’pens, but it has continued to tighten up on him as he finishes the bullpen and gets into the recovery phase. I don’t really know what this means; we’ll see what the MRI says.”
The looming issue for Brash, who has only made 20 appearances this season, is that even if the issue solves itself soon, he still has the next step of throwing a live BP or two, before needing a rehab assignment — and after so long away from action, that rehab assignment would need to be a lengthier one.
Brash is just about the last piece missing from the Mariners’ bullpen, with Carlos Vargas making his season debut on Aug. 22 and Cooper Criswell coming off the IL on Monday. But the unit has struggled as a whole, posting an ugly collective 7.83 ERA since Aug. 1 — a number that actually went down after it allowed 18 earned runs across 21 1/3 innings on the road trip to Toronto and Boston.
Time isn’t quite as much of a factor for Donovan — yet, at least — but he’s at a somewhat similar standstill. The 29-year-old, who suffered a concussion in a freak batting practice incident on Aug. 22, has yet to make it through a full pregame routine without dealing with symptoms.
“Some days are better than others,” Hollander said. “The last few days during the pregame, he has felt symptomatic toward the end of each of those pregames, whether it’s a little bit of nausea, fatigue, dizziness — things where it’s just not OK if we run him out there when he’s feeling those things, until he can get all the way through them and feel 100 percent.”
The good news — for now, it seems — is that once Donovan can tick that box of the pregame workout, he’ll be ready to go. Hollander said he might need a game or two with Triple-A Tacoma to get his timing back, but it would be a short jump back to the Mariners’ starting lineup.
That has the potential to be a huge late-season boost for the Seattle lineup; in 14 games between coming off the IL on Aug. 4 and going back on it with the concussion, Donovan hit .283 with three doubles and seven RBIs.
Elsewhere on the injury front, Emerson Hancock, who hit the IL after suffering a left abductor strain while tagging a runner in his start in Toronto last Friday, is set to throw again on Sunday, after which the club will determine his next steps.
Cole Wilcox (left oblique strain) is also set to throw this weekend, with the hope that if all goes well, he’ll be able to go on a rehab assignment with Tacoma before the Rainiers’ season ends.
The Mariners’ one roster move Thursday that affected the everyday lineup didn’t have anything to do with an injury, though, as Victor Robles was placed on the emergency family medical leave list. The club didn’t provide details, other than the fact that the outfielder was flying back home to the Dominican Republic.