Alright, here's what I know about Wladimir Balentien and his knee injury. Last night, in the sixth inning he was trying to make a sliding catch for a ball in foul territory at Cheney Stadium. Along that area there's small chain linke fence that separates the field from the stands. At the base of the fence, there is about four to five inches of concrete that runs along it. Because of the snow up in Tacoma and some rain earliers, Balentien slid early but went about six to eight feet and slammed into the fence, banging his knee against it very hard. He had to be carried off the field. There was no twisting of the knee or anything like that just a hard collision.

I talked with Bill Bavasi today and he said that the injury is not as bad as first feared, but that the real determination will come from a second evaluation with the doctor sometime today. Bavasi said that if he found out more information on it, he would let us know.

Manager John McLaren told me that x-rays were negative on the knee and that's its just a deep bone bruise. Balentien is on the line-up card in Tacoma today for the day game as a reserve. But he was seen on crutches last night. Most likely with something like this he could be out a week or maybe two at the most.

But really, it kind of comes at a bad time. With Brad Wilkerson struggling and Mike Morse on the DL, Balentien might be somebody the Mariners have to take a look at soon, especially if they continue to be inconsistent offensively.

* As for the release of Frank Thomas, Bavasi couldn't and wouldn't really speak about him, saying he didn't know much about Thomas and how he was playing this season. But he did say that he's more focused on the 25 guys in the clubhouse than anybody out that's available. I'm torn about whether Thomas could help the Mariners. He really wasn't producing that much for the Blue Jays, and the Ms arleady have older guys that aren't producing. If you pick him up, he expects to play every day, and as the story said, he doesn't take well to being benched. At this point, I'd rather give Clement or Balentien a shot at this point.

* Eric O'Flaherty has been moved up to Triple A. He made one appearance for AA West Tenn, pitching two innings and allowing one hit, while striking out two.