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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   ADDITIONAL ITEMS • Seattle Mariners (External Link) • Schedule (External Link) • Player Stats (External Link)   CONTACT THE HERALD Report scores and results to 425-339-3470 or 1-866-6-SCORES (Call after 4:30 p.m.) E-mail information including items for Tuesday's Communities Sports Roundup and Thursday's Outdoor Calendar, to sports@heraldnet.com Kevin Brown, Sports Editor kbrown@heraldnet.com   Published: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 Mariners: McLaren wants team to flip the switch By Kirby Arnold Herald Writer PEORIA, Ariz. -- Manager John McLaren is pacing. The final days of spring training are here and his Seattle Mariners aren't pitching well, aren't hitting well, aren't fielding well and certainly aren't running like McLaren would like. Roster decisions must be made in a few days and McLaren, in his first spring training as a manager, is wearing the worried expression of a skipper whose team isn't performing now the way it must in a week. "He's wearing a path around here," former M's outfielder Jay Buhner said, pointing to a circular route in the carpet leading from McLaren's office to the coaches' conference room and back. McLaren's concern with a week remaining before the regular season is nothing new around here for a manager. Seven years ago, Lou Piniella was a mess. The Mariners had lost five straight exhibitions and looked bad in the process, getting outscored 47-21 in those games. Then, as they stumbled through a lethargic Monday morning workout, Piniella blew a gasket. He stopped the drills, gathered the Mariners in the outfield and let them have it. The hundred or so spectators -- fathers, mothers and little children who'd always wanted to know what's said on a baseball field -- got as much of an earful as the Mariners. It wasn't nice, or clean. McLaren, who was Piniella's bench coach, remembers chuckling about it. He knew a team with such players as Ichiro Suzuki, Mike Cameron, John Olerud, Bret Boone, Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner and Dan Wilson would be ready by opening day. "Lou didn't know what we had. He was alarmed," McLaren said. "Ichiro wasn't pulling the ball. Lou didn't know how everybody was going to mesh together." Piniella called McLaren into his office after a workout and asked if he was worried. "I told him, 'No, I'm not concerned. We've got a veteran club, they play with adrenaline. They'll be all right,'" McLaren said. After the tongue-lashing, the Mariners won three of their next four games and tied the other, outscoring their opponents 39-19. Then they started the regular season 20-4 on the way to a major league record-tying 116 victories. That was Buhner's last spring training, but he remembers battling the lethargy that players feel late in camp. "When you get to that last seven, eight days of spring training, you hit that wall," he said. "Lou was trying to light a fire, telling us it was time to kick it in a little more. That's what's going on here right now. "Let's be honest, spring training is a pain toward the end. You've got your aches and pains, you're grinding through it, your feet are sore and your legs are sore. Stats don't really count, and as much as you want to grind through it and push yourself, you know that at the end of the day it doesn't really count. It's hard to get out of that mentality and then all of a sudden flip that switch and say it does count now." Buhner has talked with players about it the past several days, especially the younger ones. "Even some of the veteran guys, I might say, 'Hey man, you hit that wall yet?'" Buhner said. "Some of them might say to me, 'What the heck did you do to get yourself through it?' "You start challenging yourself a little bit more and tell yourself, 'Today I'm going to work the count more and see as many pitches as I can, work on hitting with two strikes and try to drive the ball to a certain part of the field. Today I'm not going to pull a ball from second base over, I'm going to stay hard in the middle all four at-bats. "There are very, very few who are good enough to be able to flip a switch and be ready to go. This is the time to start pushing yourself more and get your game face on and get into your regular-season routine and challenge yourself more on an individual basis." In six days, when the Mariners open against the Texas Rangers at Safeco Field, the switch needs to be flipped.

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