First of all let's get to the Jose Lopez situation.

Manager Jim Riggleman wouldn't come out and say what everybody already knew - he benched Lopez for yet another mental mistake in the field.

"I don’t think I really want to address that right now,” Riggleman said. “I appreciate the question. You take a regular out of the ball game it the middle of the game it’s going to raise questions.”

Um really it doesn't. We all pretty much understood, even if Lopez had hit a homer in his previous at-bat, some times enough is enough. Riggleman did say he would discuss the situation in the future.

“I haven’t talked to Jose yet, so after I talk to him I’ll find the right words to explain to you guys, but I want to get those words to him first,” Riggleman said.

Well that wasn't entirely true, I was told Riggleman spoke with Lopez briefly before doing his postgame press conference, which probably is a reason we heard this from Lopez.

“I can’t say nothing right now,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I can’t say nothing right now.”

Lopez did say he had "no idea" why he was pulled out of the game, which is ludicrous. It was a build up, starting with a failure to cover second on a ground ball with a runner on on Friday, last night's attempt to flip the ball out of his glove on a double play, today's failure to catch a routine throw down from second.

Lopez may not remember, but managers do.

As for R.A. Dickey, he thought his knuckleball was good, but he said he was behind in the count too much to use it effectively.

“I had a good knuckleball, but I just wasn’t able to get ahead of hitters today,” Dickey said. “Two three-run homers to the eight and nine hitters tells the story.”

Yes, yes it does.

But the Mariners as a whole didn't play particularly well. I mentioned earlier some bad at-bats as well. Riggleman pretty much summed it up.

“Today we took a step backward,” Riggleman said. “We played a real bad ballgame. I don’t know how else I can say it. It’s not in-line with how we played lately.”

I also have a Willie Bloomquist update
He was in the clubhouse after the game on crutches and talked with us briefly.

He said it felt like "somebody shot him the back of the leg."

As to when it happpened?

“I’m not sure if it was the last step before I hit the bag or the one after,” Bloomquist said. “It was kind of between there. It all happened real fast.”

When told of Riggleman's comment about him being not back for the rest of the season, Bloomquist wasn't surprised.

“My goal is to be ready before the end of year, but I’m not going to be stupid about it,” he said. “I understand that my legs are my game. I need to make sure it’s healthy if and when I go back out there.”

Probably the most frustrating thing for him is knowing that the chance to play with regularity is gone.

“You have no idea,” he said. “This game has a way of humbling you one way or another. The thing with injury is that it’s out of your control. But I was getting a chance to play a little bit and it was looking like I would have played a lot down the stretch, so it’s frustrating.”

From the Mariners post game notes ...

RAYS NOTES:
• The Rays pick up a game on both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees who both lost today and now have a 4.5 game lead in the AL East division. Also, their 71st win today sets the franchise high win total for a season.
• The Rays hit three or more home runs in a game for the 10th time this season. In those games the Rays are 8-2.
• Shawn Riggans hit his 5th career home run, two of which have come against the Mariners. Riggans homered off of Erik Bedard on 4/8/08 for his first career home run.
• Cliff Floyd went 3x4 with a BB and continued to hit well against the Mariners. In his career, Floyd has batted .349 (15x43) with a double, 4 home runs, 7 RBI and 8 runs scored against Seattle. This was also Floyd’s first 3-hit game of the season, with the last coming 6/14/07 vs. SEA while a member of the Chicago Cubs.
• Willy Aybar clubbed his 5th and 6th home runs of the season, which is moves him past his career high of 4 in 2006 while with Los Angeles (NL) and Atlanta. This was the first multi-home run game of his career.
• B.J. Upton stole his 36th base of the season keeping pace for second in the AL with Ichiro Suzuki. Upton and Ichiro are two behind Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury who also stole a base today for his 38th on the season.
• Carlos Pena hit his 2nd triple of the season and logged his 37th extra base hit of the season.
• Rocco Baldelli returned from the DL and made his first appearance since 5/15/07 against Texas. Baldelli also drove in his first runs since 5/3/07 vs. MIN when he hit a 2 run home run.

MARINERS NOTES:
• R.A. Dickey has allowed 8 runs twice in his last four starts after allowing 8 runs on 8 hits today. He also allowed 8 runs on 10 hits on 7/26 vs. BOS when he also allowed two home runs. Dickey tied a season high with 6 strikeouts
• Jeremy Reed has hit safely in 11 of his last 12 games during which he is batting .386 (17x44) with 4 2B and 8 RBI. Reed also stole his first base of the season. On the current homestand Reed is batting .407 (13x32) with 3 doubles, 5 RBI, a triple and 6 runs scored in 9 games.
• Seattle pitchers allowed 3 homers today; have now allowed 3+ HR’s 7 times this year. Seattle is 0-7 in those games.
• Ichiro extended hitting streak to 16 games, batting .403 (27x67) with 11 runs, 3 triples, 9 RBI, 5 walks during streak.
• Jose Lopez batted .385 (15x39) on the homestand with 3 doubles, two home runs and five RBI’s.
• Jose Lopez hit his 10th home run of the season and has now reached double-digit home run totals in three consecutive years (10 in 2006, 11 in 2007, 10 in 2008). Lopez is now tied for second in home runs by American League second basemen with Mark Ellis, Dustin Pedroia and Alexei Ramirez, who are all behind Ian Kinsler’s 14. Despite driving in one run today he fell behind Kinsler for RBI by an AL second basemen after Kinsler drove in 3 today.
• Tug Hulett was recalled prior to today’s game; Willie Bloomquist placed on DL with strained right hamstring.
• Ichiro kept pace with B.J. Upton for second place in AL stolen bases with 36.
• Jeff Clement’s 3 passed balls in a game ties a club record set by Jerry Narron 10/4/80 at TEX.

PREGAME
A few quick things that I didn't mention in my earlier post. Raul is DHing today. That means Wlad in center and Reed in left (which seems kind of backward to me).

The Rays have placed Carl Crawford on the 15-day disabled list and activated Rocco Baldelli. Those are both huge stories. Here's the most updated story.

Baldelli's return from a mitochondrial disorrder is interesting. I saw him play when he first came up and I thought this guy was going to be an all-star. Check out this story on his comeback.

Top of first
Well defensively the Mariners look sharp early on. Jeff Clement was charged with an error on the pop up. He should have caught it. But Beltre probably should have called him off on the play. R.A. Dickey works out of the jam though.

Bottom of first
Shocking the Mariners strand a runner in scoring position. They are hitting .244 as a team with RISP, while Beltre, who seems to have the approach: "swing as hard as possible" is hitting .208 with RISP.

Top of second
The Rays jump to a 3-0 lead on Willy Aybar's three-run home run right down the left field line. Dickey battled him to a 3-2 count, but his knuckleball on the payoff pitch stayed up and floated and Aybar hit it out of the park.

Bottom of Second
It's now 3-1 as Jose Lopez continues to swing the bat well hitting his 10th home run of the season on a solo shot to left off of Edwin Jackson. That's one more run than the M's scored against Jackson in April when he pitched eight shutout innings, allowing just two hits.

Top of third
The Rays add another run as a lead-off walk to Cliff Floyd comes back to haunt Dickey. Baldelli gets his first hit and RBI of the season with a liner over the head of Betancourt.

Bottom of third
A lead off single from Yuni amounts to little. Jeremy Reed popped a bunt attempt to catcher Shawn Riggans. Here's Riggleman's comment about the Mariners bunting woes today.

Bunting is kind of a lost art throughout the game. That is an indictment all of us throughout the game, instructors, coaches, managers, all of us. It’s rampant throughout baseball. We put an exclamation on it last night with the poor execution. Really just we have to get back off the cage off not a batting practice pitchers arm, but a machine that’s firing, -- get in there and get back to work. It’s really one of those things that is done over and over in spring training but that’s useless in all of this. It’s got to be maintained and we’re going to have to do it.

Top of fourth
The lead is pushed to 5-1 as another walk comes back to bite Dickey. This time Aki Iwamura drew a walk and stole second. On the throw down, the ball skipped into center and he moved to third, scoring easily on BJ Upton's single.

The official scorer credited the error to Jeff Clement, but I disagree completely. I watched the replays, the throw was perfectly fine. There might have been small short hop, but Lopez needs to catch that ball. If he does, the runner is out. It's the failure to do these simple things that lead to losses.

Clement is having a tough time with Dickey's knuckler, he also had a passed ball later in the inning.

Bottom of fourth
Apparently Jim Riggleman agrees with me about Lopez catching the ball. Because after Adrian Beltre led off the inning with a single, Tug Hulett pinch hit for Lopez. Hulett, a dirtbag of a player (that's a compliment), had a nice at-bat, just missing a home run, fouling off some pitches and drawing a walk. But it led to nothing. Jeff Clement swung at a low pitch that led to a 1-6-3 double play. It was an uncharacteristic pitch for Clement to swing at, but I think he was trying to make up for the inning before. Balentien flew out to left to end the inning.

Top of fifth
The official scorer agrees with me and the rest of the press box. They changed the scoring, giving the error instead to Lopez. That might be the best aspect of the inning, because Dickey gave up a three run bomb to catcher Shawn Riggan and it's now 8-1. Its hard to tell how well Dickey's knuckleball is moving from the press box, but his command overall even with his other pitcher hasn't been great. He has four walks and has already thrown 110 pitches, 67 for strikes.

Top of seven
I took an inning off. Not much happened. The Rays got another run and lead 9-1.

What's more frustrating is watching Seattle hitters and their approach against Edwin Jackson. I don't know if I would call it an approach, I would call it hacking. Jackson came in with 57 walks in 130 innings pitched. He's notorious for falling behind hitters and giving free passes, but he has only two walks today - both to Tug Hulett - while the rest of Seattle has swung at just about everything he throws up there. It's why Jackson beat the Mariners in Tampa and he's doing the same thing here.

Perhaps even more frustrating is that the free swinging mentality is getting contagious. Jeff Clement, who in the past has been patient and willing to take pitches and walks, is now swinging at the first pitch all the time. It's not a good trend.

On a positive note, that was a great catch by Bryan LaHair to end the inning.

Top of Nine
I really have lost the will to post anything analytical or quippy about this game. About the best thing I can say is that it won't last as long as last night's game. But it feels longer at this point.

I'm certain many of you stopped watching about an hour ago.

Bottom of nine
For Visitingfan: Baldelli went 1-for-4 before being lifted for Gabe Gross. He looked pretty good, but I think the Rays will be relatively careful not playing too much, too soon.

As for Erik Bedard, he played catch today. It was back-to-back days for him. Nothing major, and I don't think it was a very long game of catch. But it is improvement.

South Kitsap's Jason Hammel is in to pitch the final inning for the Rays.

Rays (70-46)
Aki Iwamura 2B
B.J. Upton CF
Carlos Pena 1B
Rocco Baldelli DRF
Cliff Floyd DH
Ben Zobrist SS
Eric Hinske LF
Willy Aybar 3B
Shawn Riggans C
----------------
Edwin Jackson P

Mariners (45-72)
Ichiro RF
Reed LF
Ibanez DH
Beltre 3B
Lopez 2B
Clement C
Balentien CF
LaHair 1B
Betancourt SS
-----------
Dickey P

Willie Bloomquist has been placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained hamstring. He is scheduled for an MRI on Tuesday, according to Mariners trainer Rick Griffin.

Manager Jim Riggleman admitted that Bloomquist might be done for the season.

"It's a very significant pull and I don't know if we'll see him the rest of the year," Riggleman said. "Willie plays so hard that if you get him back, you know he's going to go hard, you have to make sure the thing is absolutely 100 percent healthy or he will pull it again. We want to just to let him get strong."

Infielder Tug Hulett was called up from Triple A Tacoma. Hulett got the call late Saturday night in Tucson and took an 6 a.m. flight to Seattle.

"It's kind of like last time, a late night call and an early game and a very early flight," he said.

Also from the morning meeting with Riggleman ...

* Ryan Rowland-Smith will remain in the rotation indefinitely and will start Saturday in Minnesota.

* Riggleman was a big fan of Joe Maddon's use of the extra infielder last night. Riggleman said his college coach at Wake Forest used a similar tactic that he learned from watching the Dodgers when Walter Alston was the manager.

If the Mariners were to do a similar shift, Riggleman said he would most likely use Ichiro - who came up as a shortstop in Japan - as his extra infielder.

* With the injury to Bloomquist, Wlad Balentien will probably platoon with Jeremy Reed in centerfield. Both players will also see some time at DH. Riggleman said that he wants to play Balentien some in left, so Raul might get an occasional DH stint along with Ichiro every once in a while.

* Riggleman wasn't exactly pleased with Jose Lopez's defensive decisions last night (don't get me started on this), but he point to Loopez's decision to try and make a glove flip on a play as one of the myriad of little mistakes that have plagued the team this season.

* As for Yuni's failure to get a sac bunt down last night, Riggleman blamed baseball as a whole for failing to make it a priority to work on bunting enough. He believes there needs to be some level of quality practice at things like bunting, because just working on it during spring training.