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Geoff Baker covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times. He provides daily coverage of the team throughout spring training, and during the season.

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April 18, 2008 6:14 PM

White knuckle time

Posted by Geoff Baker

R.A. Dickey seems just a little bored by all of this pre-game hype about his comeback, his knuckleball and everything else being said about him. Most of it good. Believe me, though, he is running a gamut of emotions today. When I talked to him last night, he told me it would be tough not to think about everything he's been through. And he has been through it.

Richie Sexson is in the lineup tonight, as is Jose Vidro, who fouled a ball off his leg last night. Brad Wilkerson sits again against the lefty. I asked manager John McLaren whether the strict platooning of Wilkerson and Willie Bloomquist will continue indefinitely and he said he isn't sure how long it will go. But he wants Wilkerson to start hitting and figures keeping him against righthanders for now will give him a bit of a break and help him find his stroke.

By the way, here's today's travel video on getting here from Oakland. You'll see the flight, the rental car pickup, the hotel and the drive up to the ballpark. Also, my chance meeting in the stadium parking lot with former big leaguer and Angels broadcaster Rex Hudler. He's a fan of the blog and reads it often.

I asked McLaren and trainer Rick Griffin about The Hardball Times article speculating that Erik Bedard had a torn labrum issue in his hip. McLaren said that as far as he knew, Bedard was coming along fine and that he wasn't up on all the technical medical terms coming out of Bedard's MRI. Fair enough. But Griffin is up on the terminology. Trouble is, he legally can't say anything about what is causing the inflamation in Bedard's hip. Thanks to HIPPA privacy laws, he is bound to secrecy unless Bedard wants to come out and tell the world exactly what is going on. Good luck. So, we'll see what happens next week. We'll all know soon enough whether this is a more serious issue than the team is letting on, or it really is just a stubborn case of inflamation, with no serious long-term reprecusions.

Hey, I can't beat it out of them. By the way, Griffin is aware of the THT article, as is the team's media staff and -- I asume -- the front office. But they're all keeping mum for now.

Until then, we've got Dickey.

Tonight's lineups:

MARINERS (9-8)

51 Ichiro CF
4 Jose Lopez 2B
28 Raul Ibanez LF
29 Adrian Beltre 3B
3 Jose Vidro DH
44 Richie Sexson 1B
2 Kenji Johjima C
16 Willie Bloomquist RF
5 Yuniesky Betancourt SS

41 R.A Dickey RHP

ANGELS (10-7)

9 Chone Figgins 3B
24 Gary Matthews Jr. RF
27 Vladimir Guererro DH
16 Garret Anderson LF
48 Torii Hunter CF
35 Casey Kotchman 1B
6 Maicer Izturis 2B
44 Mike Napoli C
2 Erick Aybar SS

51 Joe Saunders LHP

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