Mariners officially turn 'day-to-day' into a dirty word after Julio Rodríguez injury

The Seattle Mariners got another injury scare on Wednesday, when Julio Rodríguez unexpectedly left an eventual 5-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles in the seventh inning. But don't worry. He's day-to-day with what the team is calling a hamstring spasm.

And by "don't worry," we obviously mean "go ahead and panic."

It's hard not to just because this is Julio Rodríguez we're talking about. He's been the face of the franchise for five years now, and he's on his way to becoming perhaps the greatest player to ever wear Mariners threads. When he goes down, the mood also goes down. It's the law.

And then there's, you know, all that other context about the Mariners too frequently using "day-to-day" as a wholly ineffective shield against harsher realities.

Cal Raleigh and Brendan Donovan were day-to-day until they needed to on the injured list. Then the same thing happened to J.P. Crawford. And then to Randy Arozarena. And even before Julio was listed as day-to-day, the team slapped the same label on Josh Naylor and Luke Raley in response to an achy wrist and back, respectively.

Mariners' mishandling of injuries puts their credibility on the line after Julio Rodríguez's hamstring scare

Injuries can and will happen, and anyone seeing our exasperation over this sudden pile-up as an old man yelling at clouds isn't necessarily wrong.

Yet there should be no doubt that the Mariners' credibility on these injuries is at stake, precisely because they've put it there by playing too fast and lose with "day-to-day." That label is ultimately based on hope, which is fine unless it results in rationality taking a backseat.

It is fair to accuse the Mariners of being guilty of this with each one of the aforementioned scenarios, and especially those of Raleigh and Arozarena. The notion that their injuries would just magically heal themselves was always folly, and the consequences were real. Raleigh suffered through a career-worst slump as he tried to play through an oblique strain. The Mariners were so slow to get an MRI on Arozarena's hamstring that they had to call someone up from High-A when one revealed more inflammation than expected.

If there's any silver lining to Julio's case, it's that he had the to not push his luck and talk to head athletic trainer Kyle Torgerson before attempting to continue. Getting him out of the game was absolutely the right call, and it may be the reason why his "day-to-day" prognosis ends up being accurate.

Or so Mariners fans must hope, anyway. Because if this is yet another injury that proves to be more serious than the team initially believed, the roster will inevitably go the way the vibes have already gone: from bad to worse.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow