Since the Mariners pitching staff was, entering Sunday, 26th in MLB in strikeouts (561), next to last in earned run average (5.49) and WHIP (1.47), and last in batting average against (.274), it is understandable that general manager Jerry Dipoto senses a bit of a deficiency there.

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Mariners fans alert: Sports-franchise enfeeblement is not a permanent condition.

Probably you knew that. But when the local nine leads the solar system in errors, strikeouts and double-digit losses, sometimes it's important to hear the reminder over the Benny Hill-theme music playing on an endless loop in your minds.

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In mid-June, NFL talk is cheap, cheaper than sand in Egypt. That's why no one was taking too seriously LT Duane Brown's recent claim that the Seahawks' offensive line might be best in the league in 2019. No one snickered -- Brown is the most powerful Seahawk, so the threat of sudden harm is always in the consciousness around him -- but the remark seemed hyperbolic.

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The NBA had itself some drama Monday night. The two-time defending champs, down 3-1, celebrate the return after 32 days of their star big man, who plays 14 brilliant minutes, only to go down with a more serious injury. Yet Golden State wins. By one. On the road.

The Toronto Raptors, feeling the weight of everyone from Hudson's Bay to Whitehorse on their backs, slavering for a first championship, can't shoot a lick, yet come from 14 down to six up inside the final four minutes. Then they ease ever so slightly, and lose. By one. At home.

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Of all the nuisance things that have attended the Pac-12 Conference's full sellout of its breadwinner football enterprise to the demons of the television schedule, the 7:30 p.m. kickoff is the worst. And not just because it inconveniences me or my media colleagues, who manage to handle 7 p.m. starts for baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer games with only modest whimpering.

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Finally, the Mariners have found something worse than their season. But it's hardly a good distraction.

The man who leads the American League in strikeouts desperately needed make solid contact Thursday. Instead, OF Mitch Haniger fouled a pitch into his groin and Friday was put on the 10-day injured list with a ruptured testicle.

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A bit lost in the run-up during the week of the Seahawks' playoff game at Dallas in January was a regular-season statistical feat on offense that not only was a club record, the NFL had never seen its like since the data was tracked.

QB Russell Wilson targeted WR Tyler Lockett 70 times in 2018. He completed 57, including 10 touchdowns. None were intercepted. According to a formula devised by the NFL and tracked since 2002, the tandem made for a passer rating of 158.3. The figure is the formula's maximum possible. In the parlance of the trade: Perfect.

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There was a time in Seattle when the SuperSonics were the biggest deal. Now they are no deal.

So when the time came Saturday for the 40th anniversary of Seattle's first modern major sports championship, melancholy nibbled at the edges.

To be sure, many cheers and laughs pickled the one public celebration, when coach Lenny Wilkens and six players made it to a pre-game ceremony at T-Mobile Park to have a go at the ceremonial first pitch.

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In a season that is tantamount to extended spring training, any game outcome or personnel development can't be considered large, because there is little incentive to care about either for 2019. Nevertheless, Sunday and Monday may be seen as benchmark days in the larger plan of general manager Jerry Dipoto to get the Mariners competitive before the polar ice caps melt.

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Every sports fan operating off of more than his or her medulla oblongata knows that a professional athlete's prime time -- except for golfers, bowlers and good quarterbacks -- is short. But that truth stands little chance against the tsunami of sentiment that follows career's end for a beloved local hero.

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Seattle's expansion hockey franchise doesn't have a nickname yet, but it has its first loss. Dave Tippett, a longtime NHL coach brought on 11 months ago as a consultant to hockey operations, was officially hired Monday as head coach of the Edmonton Oilers.

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Knowing how the dwindling knot of Mariners fans are repulsed annually by the bellicose Canadians who commandeer T-ball Park for the annual series with the Blue Jays, this notion may be hard to take. But since the NBA Finals features the Toronto Raptors for the first time in their existence, they are automatic darlings of the North American pro sports spring.

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It was over in warmups.

Watching North Carolina at one end of the arena in Columbus, and Washington at the other. After five minutes, any discerning follower of basketball could tell. There was almost no way to imagine that the Huskies were going to win their second-round game that Sunday afternoon in the NCAA men's basketball tourney.

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Huskies coach Mike Hopkins has taken his recruitment skills to the top tier of men's college basketball. The announcement Wednesday of the signing of Jaden McDaniels, a 6-9, 185-pound forward from Federal Way High School and one of the nation's premier prep players, to pair with another five-star recruit, 6-9, 245-pound forward Isaiah Stewart, signals a new frontier for UW hoops.

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The traditional awkward dance between the Seahawks and a star player seeking a third contract is underway again. This time, LB Bobby Wagner seems be going out of his way not to step on toes.

After the unpleasantness with Earl Thomas a year ago, and Richard Sherman before that, and Kam Chancellor before that, Wagner decided to show up for practice. But not actually practice, until a deal for an extension is struck.

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After the 13-2 aberration gave way to the Mariners' 2019 norm -- Sunday's 7-4 victory prevented a four-game sweep by Minnesota, but was just the fifth win in the past 19 games -- I felt a need to consult with the smartest people I know, the readers of Sportspress Northwest, who I hope also are susceptible to flattery as brazen as it is cheap.

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Mid-May is a poor time for forecasting an outcome for the pending NFL season. Then again, so is mid-December. The chance for looking foolish, however, at least is reduced.

The notion of looking foolish came up in the NFL Wednesday because the New York Jets fired their general manager after Mike Maccagnan chose a new coach, spent $120 million in the free agent market and chose the players he wanted in the college draft.

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It would be harsh to say the Seahawks are becoming a home for high-promise, low-delivery young quarterbacks. But, well . . . Geno Smith.

A second-round pick (39th overall) of the New York Jets in 2013, Smith, 28, joins Paxton Lynch, 25, a first-round pick (26th overall) of the Denver Broncos in 2015, to compete for the understudy job behind QB Russell Wilson, who seems as hard to bring down as Marvel films villain Thanos.

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The temptation is to say that the Mariners' 11-2 loss Sunday (box) in Boston that featured five fielding blunders in the first three innings and eight walks in eight innings, concluding a three-game Red Sox sweep by a 34-8 cumulative margin, and a 2-8 road trip with the 15th defeat in 19 games, was a milestone in ineptitude.

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Two stalwarts of the Seahawks era at the NFL pinnacle officially became ex-Seahawks Thursday. WR Doug Baldwin, 30, and SS Kam Chancellor, 31, failed physical exams and were released. Chancellor's cut was a formality after not playing last season following a neck injury; Baldwin's multiple surgeries after his most injury-riddled season made him unable to return.

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