Notebook | Mike Morse out for season after shoulder surgery

After he had hurt his left shoulder diving for a ball against the Angels during the last homestand, the Mariners' Mike Morse was asked after the game if he thought he'd have to go on the disabled list.

"Nah, I don't think so," he replied.

Morse's injury, however, turned out to be much more serious than he realized. In fact, his 2008 season is over.

Morse on Tuesday underwent what was termed "shoulder reconstruction" to repair a torn labrum in his dislocated left shoulder, suffered on the April 13 dive.

Surgery was performed by Dr. Edward Khalfayan, the Mariners' medical director. Khalfayan said the surgery "went well," according to a team release.

Such a surgery requires a six-month rehabilitation, Mariners trainer Rick Griffin said. Morse should be able to start swinging a bat in approximately four months.

Morse didn't sign a release authorizing Griffin to talk about his surgery. But speaking generally of surgeries to repair labrum tears, Griffin said Morse's swing shouldn't be affected. The injury is to his nonthrowing shoulder.

"He landed on his outstretched arm, and all his body weight and forces were on it," he said. "The weakest link in that chain happened to be his shoulder joint."

Morse, 26, made the Mariners' roster out of spring training by hitting .492, a team Cactus League record. Morse, a career .300 hitter (90 for 300), was 2 for 9 in five games this season.

Bloomquist gets bigger role

Willie Bloomquist will assume Morse's former role in the right-field platoon with Brad Wilkerson, Mariners manager John McLaren said.

That means that Bloomquist will start against left-handed pitchers, which the Mariners will face the next two nights (Baltimore's Adam Loewen and Oakland's Dana Eveland).

"They haven't really said anything to me as far as that," Bloomquist said. "I guess I've been around long enough to kind of assume that's what they're going to do. Or at least to be ready for it."

Bloomquist started against Baltimore right-hander Daniel Cabrera on Wednesday. Wilkerson, struggling with a .178 batting average, is still nursing a tight right hamstring that forced him to leave Tuesday's game.

"I wanted to be cautious," Wilkerson said. "I felt if I had kept playing on it I would have definitely pulled it. I went in and hit today, and I didn't feel anything. That's a good sign."

Wilkerson is also one of several Mariners players experiencing flu-like symptoms. Griffin likened it to a flu bug that leveled the team three years ago.

"Some years no one gets a cold, and some years everyone gets it," he said.

Notes

• Bullpen coach Norm Charlton was apparently the mastermind of the great prank Tuesday night in which pitcher Mark Lowe hid in J.J. Putz's locker and nailed him with a shaving-cream pie.

"In the old days, [Rob] Dibble did all these things, but Norm thought of all the things for Dibble," McLaren said, referring to the Cincinnati Reds "Nasty Boys" of the early 1990s. "He's kept the same thing here."

• McLaren said the left-handed setup job is developing into "a one-two punch" involving 38-year-old Arthur Rhodes and 25-year-old Ryan Rowland-Smith. Rhodes, who missed the 2007 season after elbow surgery, picked up his first win since May 23, 2005 on Tuesday.

"The operation seems to have gotten things straight, and Arthur has gotten his youth back a little," McLaren said. "He's like a kid, really pumped up. A lot of people wrote him off. I saw him in Peoria [Ariz.] after the operation when he started tossing. I saw the footsteps, and now I'm seeing the sprint. It's really nice."

For the record

Streak: L1

Home: 6-4

Road: 5-7

vs. AL West: 7-4

vs. L.A.: 3-3

vs. Oakland: 2-0

vs. Texas: 2-1

vs. AL East: 3-6

vs. AL Central: 1-1

vs. NL: 0-0

vs. LHP: 2-3

vs. RHP: 9-8

Day: 3-4

Night: 8-7

One-run: 1-5

Extra innings: 0-0

Home attendance

Wednesday's crowd: 16,823

Season total: 255,925

Biggest crowd: 46,334 (March 31)

Smallest crowd: 16,751 (April 14)

Average (10 dates): 25,593

2007 average (10 dates): 26,690