Mariners Blog

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

July 16, 2009 at 7:41 PM

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Branyan tweaked his back

Posted by Larry Stone

I just wanted to clarify what happened in the first inning when Russ Branyan hit one off the center-field wall but just trotted to second rather than run out a possible triple. Turns out he had been feeling back stiffness in batting practice, and tweaked it on the swing. He wasn't in his home run trot; he was limited in how hard he could run.

"It was a little bit tight all day,'' said Branyan, who has had periodic back spasms this season. "It got a little bit better as the game went on and I think it will be a lot better tomorrow.''

He elaborated: "It's just part of the game./ You get these little nagging injuries from time to time, I think it was more muscle tightness than anything. I don't think its an injury or anything related to an injury. We get three or four days away from the game and we're not exercising and not doing things. Your body starts to go into recovery mode and everything starts to tighten back. When you get back going on the field, you have to loosen everything back up and get back into game mode.

"I don't think it was anything to really be alarmed about. It's just stiff today.''

And on the throw from third baseman Chris Woodward he botched in the second inning, leading to an unearned run, Branyan said he lost it in the sun.

"I never even saw that ball, I saw it as soon as he let it go, after that, I tried to put my glove where I thought it was. That sun was really bad over there. I don't know if it would have made a difference if I had sunglasses. The sun was brutal.''

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Branyan tweaked his back

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