The sports talk shows can move on to another topic now (there’s still Chone Figgins, you know). Dustin Ackley is coming to the Seattle Mariners.
Moments after tonight’s 3-1 victory over the LA Angels, the Mariners announced they will call up Ackley tomorrow from Class AAA Tacoma and he’ll be in uniform for Friday night’s game against the Phillies. Seems like a safe guess that he’ll also be starting at second base.
Ackley, the second overall pick in the 2009 draft, has fallen under the when-not-if label in discussions over when the Mariners would bring him up. Considering he’s been thumping the ball lately – 7-for-13 in his past three games and a .303 season average – and especially considering the Mariners need more spark to their offense, it’s time.
That’s what manager Eric Wedge said after tonight’s game.
“He’s ready to be up here,” Wedge said. “Ackley is a guy we feel strongly about. We like his bat and he’s made tremendous strides at second base. We’re still trying to find ourselves offensively. We think Ackley’s going to be a part of that.”
He couldn’t hurt, because without the most seeing-eye of seeing-eye hits tonight, the Mariners might still be playing. Carlos Peguero’s bouncing base hit off the second-base bag in the seventh inning drove home two runs to break a scoreless tie. After the Angels got back a run by scoring off M’s reliever David Pauley in the top of the eighth, Greg Halman hit a solo homer in the bottom of the eighth for the Mariners.
It was as feel-good a victory as the Mariners could have, especially considering they’d gone since the fifth inning Monday without scoring a run. But beneath the lucky bounce off the bag and Erik Bedard’s brilliant seven innings of shutout pitching is the simple fact the Mariners need more for their offense.
They got their share hits off Angels starter Ervin Santana, eight in the 6 2/3 innings he pitched, but through six innings the Mariners had six hits and four runners in scoring position and failed to convert. It was during those missed opportunities that Wedge’s hankering for Ackley was probably at its highest.
To make room for Ackley on the roster, the Mariners optioned backup infielder Luis Rodriguez to Tacoma (Come clean now. Did you realize Rodriguez still had an option, or that he was still on the team?).
As for Ackley’s “Super Two” arbitration status, the Mariners don’t believe he will qualify although that won’t be known for a while. Super Two is a difficult process to explain, but I’ll try here.
Players aren’t eligible for salary arbitration until they have six years of major league service time. There are exceptions, however, including the Super Two definition which says a player qualifies when he has least two years of service time (but fewer than three years), his playing time ranks him among the top 17 percent in the majors among that group of players and he’s on the major league roster for at least 86 days in the previous season.
Put it this way: Super Two is a moving target but, like we wrote above, the Mariners don’t believe Ackley will qualify once all the numbers are crunched.
The bottom line anyway is this: The Mariners are a team that not only needs to play its best young players this season, they need all the productive bats they can gather.
Ackley seems ready and, as Wedge said, it’s time.
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