Manager John McLaren says the makeup of the Mariners’ bench should allow him more opportunities to use those guys than he did last year.
Too often last year, he held onto Willie Bloomquist instead of using him as a seventh-inning pinch runner because he might need him in the eighth or ninth innings. This year, McLaren has Bloomquist and veteran Miguel Cairo and he’ll have little reason to hesitate when there’s an opportunity to use them.
Both Bloomquist and Cairo are versatile enough to play across the infield and outfield, and both have the speed McLaren will need if he needs a pinch runner in place of his slowest runners, particularly first baseman Richie Sexson, DH Jose Vidro or catcher Kenji Johjima.
“Bloomquist wore a lot of hats last year and when you shoot your wad (early in a game), he’s not there later on. With Cairo aboard, we have two guys that mirror each other. If we want to pinch run somebody in seventh or eighth inning, we know we have somebody for the ninth or 10th. I think helps quite a bit. Willie did so many things well, we had to decide when to use him. Now we can use Cairo to back him up, or vice versa.”
Don’t look for McLaren to manage like that in spring training. The exhbition games are all about getting at-bats for the position players and offer little in the way of late-inning strategic moves.
McLaren did indicate that the final bench spot (after Bloomquist, Cairo and backup catcher Jamie Burke) probably would go to a right-handed-hitting outfielder. That would put Mike Morse and Wladimir Balentien in position for that role and perhaps hurt the chances for Jeremy Reed, who’s a left-handed hitter.
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