Q.  What's the over/under on Gutierrez returning to health?

A.  About five or ten years.  

Could be less, could be more; next week we may be less specific.

But that Crohn's amigo that we've mentioned, he is a bona fide expert on G-I issues, literally sits and talks cutting-edge theories with the surgeons and specialists.  Fascinating to sit and learn from him.

It took him around ten years to figure out his personal diet.  

I was irrationally hopeful that the Mariners, as a big sports corporation, would have access to some super-surgeon who would quickly figure out Guti's personal diet.  

Now that we know that not to be the case, Guti's a writeoff for me.  (By the way, how's my bedside manner?)

.

Q.  Even for a guy like Heath Ledger, er, you, that's cold.

A.  SSI is normally the Last Stop for empathy ... Ian Snell, Milton Bradley, you know the drill.

Sorry, Guti's situation, I see the brighter side for him.

He's a likeable guy, apparently well-adjusted, capable of dealing with challenges like an adult.

He's filthy rich, he looks like a movie star, he goes to work at Caesar's Palace with the attendant servants, he gets to play baseball for a hobby now ;- ), and his big problemo in life is battling some queasiness.  

I'll take it.  I'll trade my life in for Guti's right now, even with the Crohn's/IBS/whatever.  (You know what I mean.)

...........

Into the bargain here .... the queasy days and the non-queasy days are probably under his control.  Three days of chicken noodle soup and a Crohn's guy is feeling great ... then he can't resist the pizza and he's whacked out again.

Some guesswork in applying this to Guti, but generally the bad days are kinda the patient's own fault.  That plays in.

.

Q.  What if it's something really scary?

A.  Doesn't sound like it.  Not at all.  But of course if that turned out to be true, that's a different conversation.

Certainly they'd have wanted to rule out the really scary stuff, first thing.  We can presume that they've got 10,000 images of every microsection of Guti's Gut.

.

Q.  What would you do if you were Guti, by the way?

A.  Get tested for food allergies ... start with Atkins or South Beach or something like it, and experiment from there... talk to my bud with Crohn's, or somebody like him, some layman who had personally conquered his G-I problems.

And pray, of course.

.

Q.  OK, so we shlubs on $40,000 salaries need not set up our mournful shrines to Guti's days of misery.  How about mourning for our poor UZR ratings in CF?

A.  Here's where we find out how magnetic SSI's compass is, I guess...

It says here that Michael "The Mick" Saunders would do better than a +7 UZR in center field in Safeco.  +7 being what Guti did, last year, with the sour stomach. 

I just flat enjoy watching Michael Saunders run.  Conjures hot, arid, peaceful images of the savannah.

Or of a Japanese lightrail.  From the third deck, it is simply fun to watch this guy chew up distance.

...........

Last year -- now that wasn't a lot of fun to watch.  ... So if the M's put a talented young LH speedster in CF for 2011, that's okay by me :- )

.

Next

.