Cliff Lee is back in Seattle with a lower abdominal strain. He’s going to be re-evaluated in a week, but it’s likely that he’s going to miss some time, and possibly start the season on the DL. It makes his suspension a likely non-issue as he’ll be hurt.

Lee’s had lower abdominal injuries before, and they haven’t turned out well. Jeff at Lookout Landing outlined Lee’s trouble with the injury in previous years, in which he’s missed a fair amount of time.

Anyway you slice it, this is bad news. These type of injuries tend to linger and Lee has a history with this particular injury. It remains to be seen how long he’ll be out, but it sure looks like the M’s will have to do some rotation re-shuffling to start the year.

Paging Jarrod Washburn?