First outing of the season? In the second inning? Are you kidding?

The bad-health saga of James Paxton continues.

Returning to the Mariners after a two-year stint with the Yankees shortened by injury, Paxton was forced out of Tuesday night's 10-4 home loss to the Chicago White Sox by a left forearm strain. Manager Scott Servais said after the game that Paxton would have an MRI scan Wednesday morning to determine the severity.

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In the hours prior to making his major league debut for the Mariners on opening night in center field, Taylor Trammell, 23, was all twisted up and turned out.

"I woke up a wreck," he said. "Guys are talking to me saying, it's just like any other game. But you know, the first day is what we dreamed about ever since you were a kid."

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The overdone ritual of baseball's Opening Day is often more about the return of decent weather than it is a chance see players cavort, spit and overthrow the cutoff man. This year, however, is different.

The regular-season openers Thursday across the fruited plain, including one at Seattle's T-ball Park (San Francisco, 7:10 p.m., Root), feature the return of fans, who spent all of 2020 hiding from airborne cooties. Tra-la, tra-la.

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As much as has been made about the the Mariners' accumulation of top-tier prospects, it appears that only one position player will make his first major league start April 1 in T-Mobile Park. It won't be either of the celebrated youngsters with superstar potential, Jarred Kelenic or Julio Rodriguez.

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In a major blow to the booming cardboard-cutout, faux-fan industry, but in a major buzz for humanoid fans and the teams they love, people will soon populate stadiums, yards and other gathering spots in the state of Washington.

By March 22, all 39 counties will have some COVID-19 fan attendance restrictions removed for outdoor events such Mariners, Sounders and OL Reign games, as well as high school sports, rodeos, motorsports and other outdoor events.

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In a game obsessed by predictive analytics, it is sweet when randomness raises its goofy head and delivers a chef's kiss.

In the fourth inning of a spring training game against the Chicago Cubs Wednesday, manager Scott Servais was answering a live-TV ESPN interview question in the dugout when the Mariners' star-in-waiting, rookie Jarred Kelenic, was at the plate. He powered up the Mariners' first exhibition home run, an opposite-field job, no less.

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I've read a few stories during the shutdown about what is called the attention economy. The concept is not directly about sports, but it is about many things in the world that have changed in the 21st century, which includes sports.

The attention economy was first described in 1971, then the phrase was used in the 1990s and early 2000s to describe the economic period that followed, in succession, the agricultural economy, the industrial economy, and the information economy. In 2007, the year Facebook introduced its News Feed and Apple debuted the first smart phone, everything accelerated.

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Where would the Mariners be this week if chairman John Stanton had fired Kevin Mather in 2018?  That's when it became publicly known the club was sued by three female employees, two of whom accused the club president of sexual harassment, and accepted financial settlements.

The players would be at Arizona spring training playing and talking ball, not hearing things like this from staff ace Marco Gonzales:

"Sometimes a common goal can guide (a team)," he said Tuesday. "Sometimes a common enemy can do the same, if not greater. I think that's the boat we're in right now."

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In 1987, George Argyros tried to buy the San Diego Padres while owning the Seattle Mariners. The shocking stunt broke every ownership rule, custom and norm in MLB. Even his close friend, Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, felt compelled to fine his pal, a California real estate developer who bought the club in 1981, $10,000 for calling the Padres manager, a violation of the rules against tampering with other teams.

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If arrogant swagger is a valuable part of a sports championship team, Kevin Mather is more than ready to do his part.

The Mariners' seldom-heard-from president told the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club Feb. 5 that after the club wins a World Series, it will stage a celebration in downtown Seattle that will make the Seahawks 2014 Super Bowl version "look like a neighborhood Fourth of July parade. We're gonna do it right. I'm looking forward to delivering with that.

"I think we're on the verge of something special."

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Infinity, by any definition, is a mysterious concept. Perhaps the only way for a non-mathematician to appreciate endlessness or boundlessness is to use an alternative term more understandable.

I suggest Marinerness -- a time/space quality of being everywhere, but nowhere.

As Seattle fans this month enter their 44th year of the experience of baseball infinity, I doubt further explanation is necessary.

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Everyone agrees -- Kyle Lewis was the American League's Rookie of the Year. Unanimously. Nice to find something these days that all can agree on, even it was a 60-game season.

All 30 voters from the Baseball Writers Association of America said he deserved the Jackie Robinson Award. He's the the 12th to run the table, and first for the Mariners. White Sox CF Luis Robert came in second with 27 second-place votes and Astros pitcher Cristian Javier was third with 11 third-place votes.

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From 30,000 feet, the Mariners appear as they almost always have: No playoffs in 20 years, no World Series appearance ever, still living on The Double by Edgar Martinez -- an entire generation grown to adulthood without seeing it live, yet endlessly on the broadcasts.

But from 1,000 feet, things look a little different. For that, I have one word for the franchise that may surprise you:

Congratulations.

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I wish there was the equivalent of an air quality index meter for this sort of thing. Or maybe something like an antigen test. But there is no plausible marker to measure what's happening. So in the absence of a quantifier, I'm going to give it at least an identifier.

The Foghorn Leghorn Seattle Sports Week: A Set of the Most Unheard of Things I've Ever Heard Of.

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The first intrusion of COVID-19 into the Mariners' 60-game schedule is up to three games. MLB announced Tuesday morning that the final game Thursday in a three-game series at T-Mobile Park with the Oakland A's was postponed, as were the first two Tuesday and Wednesday, because of a positive test among the A's while the team was in Houston.

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Update: The Mariners' home games Tuesday and Wednesday against Oakland have been postponed to allow for more testing following a positive test among the A's while in Houston. Makeup dates have yet to be released.

In a bid to get younger, baseball's youngest team, the Seattle Mariners, Sunday night swapped three veterans 27 or older -- C Austin Nola, 30, and relief pitchers Austin Adams, 28, who hasn't pitched in 11 months, Dan Altavilla, 27, who has pitched poorly -- for four prospects 26 or under from San Diego.

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The Seahawks staged a mock game Wednesday at the otherwise-empty Clink, which was football-useful but utterly irrelevant culturally. Another unarmed Black man in America had been gunned down by police, this time in Kenosha, WI. The Seahawks joined others in the sports world furious about another atrocity -- Jacob Blake, 29, was shot seven times in the back, in front of his three children.

Coach Pete Carroll was among the outraged.

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The temptation is strong to see rookie outfielder Kyle Lewis, 25, as the Mariners' successor to Edgar Martinez or Ken Griffey Jr. As longtime broadcaster Rick Rizzs said during one of Lewis's at-bats Sunday, “He is Mr. Everything.’’

Brought up to the majors last year in September, Lewis homered in his first three games and had six homers in the 18 he played. This season, still his rookie year, he leads the Mariners with a .368 batting average, seven home runs, 39 hits, a .456 OBP, and is second in RBIs (19).

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Since studhoss Clayton Kershaw was pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers Thursday, it seemed like a good time to head to T-ball Park for a couple of temperature checks, answer some questions about my health, and to see what condition the Mariners were in, especially since this weekend marks the seasonal midpoint in VirusWorldBall.

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Woeful as the Mariners are in this stubby season, woeful as they traditionally have been, they have met the standard to be termed a civic asset: Many people care.

While it's also true that many people cared about the old Dog House restaurant in Belltown ("tenderness not guaranteed" was printed right on the menu, winning me over), no one was there to save that epicurean monument to gravy as a meal-repair tool.

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