THE FRONT ROW with JASON ELLIOTT: This bumpy road we just love to take

If we’ve learned anything from the month of April when it comes to the Inland Empire League baseball schedule, it’s this.

Buckle up.

Heading into the final week of the regular season, it’s really anyone’s guess who will be playing where, and come out of the 5A classification between Lake City, Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls and Lewiston.

A LITTLE later today, weather permitting, Coeur d’Alene ventures to Lewiston for a doubleheader with the Bengals.

Entering play today, Coeur d’Alene (9-5 in league) and Lewiston (8-6 in league) are the second and third seed respectively to the 5A Region 1 tournament. Lake City (11-4 in league) and Post Falls (7-7 in league) still have some work to do, with a conclusion of Tuesday’s doubleheader pending next week, as well as doubleheaders on Tuesday.

“I think all the teams are really balanced this year,” third-year Post Falls coach Kurt Reese said. “You see how Lewiston has fought with their games against Lake City and each matchup has been a split for the most part. It’s just been a battle. These games, there’s no pushover wins there.”

Post Falls will also attempt to conclude a doubleheader with Lakeland next week.

Those games were postponed because of darkness, something you can’t quite avoid starting doubleheaders at 3 p.m.

Lake City, which was the state runner-up in 2023, hosts Coeur d’Alene in a doubleheader on Tuesday.

“We knew it was going to be a battle coming into the season,” second-year Lake City coach Mike Criswell said. “Everyone is really close and we based a lot of what we were doing on. But we’re going to make our way through it somehow.”

Coeur d’Alene has won four straight games after beating Bonners Ferry on Monday.

“Our guys are finding their way offensively and feel like we can hang with anyone in the league,” fifth-year Coeur d’Alene coach Erik Karns said. “We’ve still got some growing to do, but we’re feeling good going into the back stretch of the season.”

And who knows, it’s quite possible that these teams haven’t played their best baseball of the season.

That time is coming soon believe it or not as the regional tournament begins one week from Monday.

Someone’s got to come out of that league.

And they’ll be well tested by that point.

WHILE YOU can’t miss the playoffs in the first month of the season, it seems the Seattle Mariners are doing the best they can to make sure they’re around in October.

Fortunately for the Mariners, nobody has gotten hot in the American League West entering Friday’s play.

Texas, the defending World Series champion, was sitting at .500 (12-12), and fresh off losing two of three games at home to Seattle this week. The Rangers will get their star pitchers Jacob DeGrom and Max Scherzer back at some point this season.

And who knows, maybe they’ll make a trade or two to improve themselves.

With Seattle (13-12), which will have to navigate the next few weeks without shortstop JP Crawford due to injury, I don’t see the Mariners making a ton of moves this year.

Seattle seems set on pitching and the experiment with Josh Rojas at third base hasn’t been a total failure.

It still could, but the way things are going, there’s going to be bumps along the way.

Something we should be well used to by now.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for The Press. He can be reached by telephone at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JECdAPress.