Cleveland Indians reliever Vinnie Pestano has a recurring dream. A batter hits a line drive right back up the middle and it's screaming toward his head. He wakes up just before impact. The real thing is a nightmare scenario that happens a couple times a season in the major leagues. "Guys are bigger now and hitting the ball harder and we're throwing the ball harder and when a guy hits one right on the screws bad things can happen," Pestano said. Most recently, it happened Saturday night in Florida. Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Alex Cobb took a nasty shot off his head from the bat of Kansas City's Eric Hosmer. That was the second time this season everyone in the stadium at a Rays game held their breath. In early May, on the very same mound, Toronto left-hander J.A. Happ took a nasty shot off his head. Happ won't return until July — at the soonest. There's no timetable for Cobb yet, though he's home from the hospital. In the meantime, baseball is left to figure out how to protect pitchers before one gets hurt in a more serious way. It's not just a player's health and livelihood at stake. Teams also lose money when their players are on the disabled list. While Major League Baseball has been auditioning various types of equipment to protect pitchers, nothing has made the cut yet. Any gear would have to stay in place during the violent, whole-body motion of pitching, not hinder its effectiveness and, of course, effectively protect their heads in event of an impact. "I really hope something gets done because it's time to act," Royals pitcher Bruce Chen said. "I know it will probably take a couple of years to get it done, but let's do it. Too many guys are getting hurt." Every pitcher knows that any pitch could result in a ball flying 100 mph or more right back at his head. Not all of them agree that something must be done. "No one's forcing you to play this game, and we're not children," Cubs pitcher Jeff Samardzija said. "We're playing big league baseball with grown men, so that's the risk you take when you play this game." Samardzija played major college football as a wide receiver at Notre Dame before he went into professional baseball, so he knows about danger in sports, and is familiar with wearing a lot more protective equipment than he does on the mound. He is adamantly against requiring pitchers to wear anything more than they do now. "Absolutely not. No. This game's been played the way it's been played for a long time," he said. "And when you sign up to play this game, no one's forcing you to play. No one's pulling you out there to do it. You're choosing to do it. It's what we love to do and obviously when you choose to play you take the risks that come with doing it." Each major league game has at least a couple hundred pitches thrown. And there are more than 2,500 games a season. Out of all those games and all those pitches, no more than a few have a pitcher getting hit in the head. The rarity of those occurrences is such that most pitchers put it completely out of mind — out of necessity, if nothing else. "If you think about it while you're out there, you're not going to get your job done," said Chris Jakubauskas, who was hit by a line drive early in the 2010 season. He sustained a concussion but recovered fully and is now in the Cleveland minor league organization, trying to return to the big leagues. He has more immediate problems than something that statistically improbable. "When you take into account how many balls are put in play every single year," Jakubauskas said. "The risk is there, if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you just hope you're in a place where you can protect yourself a little bit." Of the more than a dozen pitchers and managers The Associated Press interviewed for this story, the one thing they all emphasized was just how much bad luck it takes to be hit in the head. Sure, when a player gets hit, everyone notices, but the vast majority of balls put into play come nowhere near hurting anyone. And even the close calls emphasize how unlikely it is for a pitcher's head and a batted ball to wind up in the same place in such a way that the pitcher is unable to turn or get his glove up. "That ball's not big, so for that ball to hit me right there, the percentage of chance of that happening to me is not worth doing all the headgear," Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt said. "Unless you have to, I'm for that. That's just your livelihood, I'm not going to die. I'm not going to do it." Reds starter Mat Latos, meanwhile, actually calculated some chances. "Let's see. You have five starters. No, wait, you have, what, 12 pitchers on a team? Do the math," he said, pulling out his phone to use the calculator function. "You have 360 pitchers ... and two have been hit in the head. It happens. It's a terrible thing. When guys like Happ and Cobb get hit in the head, you feel terrible. It's not because they're your teammate or your friend. You feel terrible." Nevertheless, Latos was skeptical of mandating safety improvements. "It is what it is," he said. "You know comebackers can happen." And they will continue to do so. The question is what can be done to prevent these rare but dangerous incidents. Helmets? Protective cap liners? A protective screen, like in batting practice? All of these have been suggested. None have been acclaimed in baseball. Neither by rookies or veterans. "I'm not going to overreact to that because I'm not real sure a guy can pitch with a helmet to be honest with you," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "I can't imagine a pitcher out there pitching with an ear flap on. ... I hate to sound cold about it because I don't mean to, but I'm not sure that'll work." Ideally, baseball won't have to find out. "Hopefully it doesn't get to the point where there is a mandate to wear something," Pestano said. "Because that would mean something tragic has happened." ___ AP Sports Writers Tom Withers in Cleveland, Larry Lage in Detroit and Janie McCauley in San Francisco, and AP freelancers Brian Dulik in Cleveland and Mark Schmetzer in Cincinnati contributed to this report.

If Rafael Nadal is going to win Wimbledon for a third time, he'll have to do it the hard way. Fresh from winning his eighth French Open, Nadal is seeded only No. 5 at Wimbledon — setting up the possibility of a quarterfinal match against title contenders Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray. The All England Club released the seedings Wednesday for this year's grass-court Grand Slam, which starts Monday. The top five in the ATP rankings remain in their positions: Djokovic at No. 1, followed by Murray, Federer, David Ferrer and Nadal. Nadal slipped down the rankings after being sidelined for about seven months with a left knee injury following his surprise loss to Lukas Rosol in the second round at Wimbledon last year. The Spaniard has won seven of the nine tournaments he has entered in his comeback — including the French Open last month — but he still fell to No. 5 after Roland Garros behind the man he beat in the final — Ferrer. Wimbledon's seeding order is determined using the ATP rankings and points are added for achievements in grass-court tournaments in the past 12 months. The All England Club could have moved Nadal up to No. 4 ahead of Ferrer but decided to stick to the rankings. The women's seedings follow the WTA rankings, with five-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams at No. 1 and Victoria Azarenka at No. 2. Serena's sister, Venus Williams, withdrew Tuesday, citing a back injury. While Nadal was losing to then-No. 100 Rosol in one of the biggest upsets in Wimbledon history last year, Ferrer reached the quarterfinals for the first time in 10 attempts before losing in four sets to Murray. Although clay is Ferrer's best surface, he has twice won the Dutch grass-court title at Rosmalen. However, he lost his first-round match there this year to Xavier Malisse on Tuesday. Nadal may have to beat all of the world's top three players if he is to add to his Wimbledon titles in 2008 and '10, two of his 12 Grand Slam championships. He will find out when the draw is held on Friday. "I'd sign up to be in the quarterfinals against Rafa tomorrow if someone offered me that," Murray said in his column for the BBC website. "You could say if I get through that match, then the semifinal might not be as tough, but if you want to win the biggest tournaments you have to beat the best players in the world. "It doesn't really matter where they are in the draw." Jo-Wilfried Tsonga jumped one spot in the seedings to No. 6, with Tomas Berdych dropping a place to No. 7. Marin Cilic, runner-up at the Queen's Club tournament on Sunday, moves up to No. 10 from an ATP ranking of 12. American player John Isner jumped from 21 to 18.