Never fails to happen on the road. We get somewhere, some opposing press member says something to the effect of “looking at your team’s roster, I don’t get it,” and then we hear that the temperatures at home are higher than they are wherever we are. One of those years I guess.

Although, I will take a San Diego 72 over a Seattle 72 any day. Beach trumps all. Enjoyed the off day as did the Mariners. We got in at about 2:30am Thursday morning so there was some sleeping in. Several M’s caught up with Bret Boone who lives nearby in El Cajon. There was golf involved I am told. Guess which Mariner took in Sea World. Johjima! The avid fisherman likes to look at fish behind glass as well. Me, well any off day in a town with a beach and I can pretty much guarantee that is where I am going to be.

Now it is back to work. Cha Seung Baek is one of the first players I saw when I came in today. He was taking early batting practice. I asked if he had a hit yet and he said no, six at bats and so far has reached base just once and that was on a walk. “Maybe I will get a hit tomorrow.” He said with a laugh. He is enjoying San Diego and with the injury situation here (they just signed Brett Tomko for a third go round) he is getting a good opportunity in the starting rotation.

Saw Felix walking in the clubhouse without the protective boot. He looked fine, no limp. He was lobbying hard to make his next start but in order to do that he would have had to throw a bullpen today and that did not happen. Jim Riggleman said that they are targeting a Monday or Tuesday start. Good news.

As for Sunday’s starter, Erik Bedard and his back showed no ill effects from the cross country trip (which featured quite an airline pillow and blanket tossing fight that Felix was in the middle of). Of course now we have another back controversy as
Riggleman said that the back issues Miguel Batista talked about after Wednesday’s loss in New York was something the team was not aware of and “May have slipped through the cracks.”

I have heard it explained a thousand times that there is a difference between being hurt and being injured. For the most part, you play through hurt, aches and pains while injury involves actual damage in which case you have to shut it down and heal. It is the player’s responsibility to report injuries to the team but sometimes there is grey area between hurt and injury. Batista has had on and off back issues the past two years. Both started in spring training. This year in Peoria we often saw him lying on the floor in front of his locker trying to get some relief. After one game he said something that I found concerning. He said that he had experienced back problems during the game, but felt that it was important that he see if he could pitch through them. Why anyone would push it during spring training is beyond me. He was very possibly risking injury at the time of the year when he should have been very conservative.

During the regular season he has spoke of the back after various starts and I have seen ice on it several times in the clubhouse. It would appear that he has been dealing with “hurt”. Is there a point when is there too much hurt? I was not in the press group that spoke with Batista Wednesday night because I was on the air at the time. When asked about what was going on with him I said that I was concerned and thought there may be an injury. The tip-off for me was that his fastball was in the 86-88 mph range. Last season he hung out at 92-93. I know he is working hard because I see him running stairs in the stadium home and away. Something appears to be going on but it is up to him to let the Mariners know. The Mariners have an excellent training staff, but they are not mind readers.

On to other topics…The Padres are holding a seventies night here tonight so both clubs are wearing retro uniforms. The M’s are wearing their ’78 unis and the guys that I spoke with hate them. The color can best be described as bubble gum blue and there is very little other color breaking it up. Everyone was complaining about the pants. I find it funny, dressing professional ballplayers up in uniforms that they hate and while historically correct, look hideous now.

Had a little fun before batting practice. Was sitting in the dugout when RA Dickey came out and started throwing a ball at the wall at the end of the dugout. Just throwing it like he was bouncing it off a garage door during the summer. I asked if he was bored or if there was a purpose to what he was doing. He told me he was getting a feel for the grip of his knuckleball. I watched a little more than commented that it was probably harder than it looked just bouncing the ball off the short wall between the water cooler and extra bench. Basically he was throwing to the middle of a 2 foot by four foot rectangle. He held out the ball and said “Try it.”

I have to admit, being around baseball every day and watching the guys hit and throw, for me there is always an underlying “I want to play too!” feeling. A couple of times a season someone will put their glove up and signal for me to throw them a ball during batting practice. Richie did this in Toronto. A ball came near me on the foul line so he signaled to me to throw it to him at first. I shook my head. As much as I want to play, I don’t want to embarrass myself. Between nerves and high heels, there is a good chance I will do just that if I try to throw it back. Another player picked up the ball and threw it to Richie. A couple of seconds later I saw a ball on the turf rolling towards me. It hit me in the foot and I picked it up. Richie got down into a catchers crouch and put the glove out motioning for me to throw it. I knew I had to. I was a little wide, but not too bad. Richie and Adrian got a good, but good natured laugh out of it.

Since no one was around, and Dickey is a really nice guy, I decided to try it. I gripped the ball and launched a nice little curve, hitting the rectangle square in the middle. “Or, maybe it’s not too hard.” I said. “Try it three times in a row.” Dickey replied. So I took the ball again and this time threw it over the wall and into the stands. Dickey gave me an amused look and said, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” as he pulled another ball out of his pocket.

Sure enough, seconds later two security guards walked by and said to RA “You meant to throw that into the stands didn’t you?” True to his word, RA didn’t sell me out and said nothing. As the guards passed by I sheepishly called out, “I did it!”
Just a little moment, but these are the ones that make the job so fun.

In addition to a fun moment, I had a cool moment. Spoke to Mel Stottlemyre today not about pitching, but about his pitchers hitting. Mel got very involved with pitchers batting practice last week in Seattle. The hitting coaches were not there, but Mel took over. Turns out he was a bit of a hitter in his day. Had a 5 for 5
day on a day that a very famous teammate went 0 fer. Mel threw a 2 hitter and out hit Mickey Mantle in a game against the Senators that he has never forgotten. So cool that I have the opportunity to talk to a guy that actually played with Mickey Mantle. If there is six degrees of separation between the general population, there can’t be more than three in baseball.


Post Game Stuff

18 left on base. Wow. Guess the good news is that they got guys on!

Talked to Washburn after the game. Feels the changes he made recently are starting to pay off. Won’t tell us exactly what they were but has said that they are minor and that his college coach picked up on the problem after watching some of his games on tv. I hung around late to ask Jarrod a sensitive question. Wanted to know how things were going with Kenji. I asked because in the 8th inning of tonight’s game Joh ran out to the mound to talk to him right before Adrian Gonzalez came up to bat. The cameras caught the conversation and both players were almost smiling. The two looked comfortable together and I wanted to know if this was the case after Jarrod caused a stir a month ago when he declared that he and Joh were having communication problems and were not on the same page. I gave him the opportunity to not answer the question if he didn’t want to, but he did, and here is what he had to say when asked if they were more on the same page now.

“Yeah very much. When Roger (Hansen) was brought in and spoke to Joh and I think everyone was working hard at that time and we knew that communication was an issue and that guys not being on the same page was starting to come up, it was something. I don’t know if everyone has done it, but I know Joh and I have done a lot of work behind the scenes together to try and get on the same page, which we had done to that point but Roger must have said something to him that clicked because we are communicating a lot better and we are working together a lot better. Like I said before, I love Joh. He is a great guy and he works real hard, there were just times when we weren’t clicking in ball games, but yeah, lately we are getting better and better and I feel comfortable with him.”

Good to hear and I can back up Jarrod’s comments about the work they have put in together. As I have posted before, from what I have seen, and I wrote about it at the time, Jarrod went way out of his way to work with Joh, and get to know him both as a person and as his catcher when he first got here.

Other stuff…Looks like it will indeed be Bedard on Sunday, and Felix who did throw today on Tues. They are calling Batista day to day as he deals with the back. On that topic, saw two things from Riggleman tonight that I really liked. The first being that he was ready in the 8th. He let Washburn go, but had him backed up big-time with both Brandon Morrow and Ryan Rowland-Smith. He said he wanted to be ready for any situation in that inning. Wash said he appreciated the confidence that was shown in him by letting him go out. So Riggs (that’s what the players call him and I am getting tired of typing Riggleman out) stretched out Wash to 118 pitches, showed confidence in him, but was ready with the bullpen if needed.

The other thing I liked was a little more subtle. It was clear the organization was not happy with Batista after his post game comments Sunday. There was what I would expect was a rather stern meeting with him after batting practice and I think it was safe to say he was kind of in the dog house. He looked kind of down in the dumps about it. When the game ended and the players were walking out to shake hands Riggs jogged out to where Batista was in line and walked a few steps with him with his arm around his shoulders. I don’t know what he said to him, but it showed something to whoever was watching, be it myself, teammates or Batista himself.

I remember Hargrove did this once in a similar situation. He hadn’t been using the bench much and a couple of the players had been vocal about it. Willie Bloomquist was one of them, but I can’t remember who the other was. After the comments were made the team won a feel good game that Willie and the other player did not play in. When the team did the high fives and Hargrove got to the end of the line and turned back towards the dugout he caught up with Willie and the other bench guy and put an arm around both as they walked back into the dugout. Neither was involved in the victory. I asked him later why he did this and he told me that it was important that they knew they were part of the team and not feel bad after a victory. He said that he told them that at some point he would need them and that they would contribute. It’s a small thing, but I think that the manager paying attention to the guys who might still be grumbly for lack of a better word, after a win kind of helps keep control of a situation.

Whoa! Long post and it’s late. Can’t let this cut into my beach time tomorrow!