PEORIA, Ariz. — Ichiro Suzuki didn’t want to spend time talking about jealous teammates, a divisive clubhouse or record flops from a year ago.
To him, it’s all just “silly.”
Suzuki arrived at Seattle Mariners spring training on Thursday fresh off a second World Baseball Classic title with Japan. He made his Cactus League debut by slapping a pair of singles and scoring a run in a 10-9 win over the Kansas City Royals.
The eight-time All-Star played five innings and got his first taste of life in the same outfield with Ken Griffey Jr. But everyone wanted to know what he thought about comments from former teammates and coaches this spring that Suzuki was a divisive force that led to bickering by other players.
Former closer J.J. Putz told The Seattle Times in February: “It’s hard to argue with 200 hits every year. … I just think there’s so much more he can do that doesn’t happen.”
When asked about those comments on Thursday, Suzuki felt addressing it was “silly” and said through a translator, “I hate to be wasting time with this kind of thing. I’m surprised at this.”
“We’re all professionals here. Is it at a level where I have to explain to other people the reasons why I do things?” Suzuki said. “We are all professionals. It makes me feel like a mom telling a child, ‘This is why I do things.’ So the problem, once again, is we were still at that level.”
Sitting cross-legged and perfectly balanced on a tiny clubhouse stool, a thoughtful Suzuki spoke through his translator for nearly a half-hour. He was passionate about winning a second WBC title and the amount of satisfaction Japan’s 5-3 win over South Korea in the championship game brought to his home country.
He also took a few playful jabs at Griffey, his idol while playing in Japan, although Griffey might have gotten the best shot in by taking note of the gray flecks now mixing with Suzuki’s black hair.
“I’ll be ready in an hour for you to take me to dinner,” Griffey yelled before Suzuki met with reporters.
But professionalism and leadership were the main issues of the day. Asked if he needed to be a leader in Seattle’s clubhouse, Suzuki said at the major league level, players should be professional enough that a leader should be singled out as the one to follow, but that the most successful teams don’t have the animosity that filled the Mariners’ clubhouse last year when a team expected to contend for the playoffs sagged to 101 losses.
“Trying to get a team together and point to one guy and say follow this leader sounds very easy and simple thing to do. In fact, if you go in this style there are manholes in this style of doing it,” Suzuki said. “I think people who believe this fundamental thought process of choosing a leader and getting a team to follow them should change their thought process. What’s important is … individuals who want to improve themselves.”
Seattle manager Don Wakamatsu is just thrilled to finally have a full roster. Now comes the 10-day crash course of merging Suzuki and fellow Japanese WBC team member Kenji Johjima with a group that seems to be buying in with the attitude Wakamatsu is trying to create.
“They’ve had an opportunity to play at such a high level, they’ve prepared to play for the season in that. The second part of it is we’ve had the ability to see a lot of young players here that we normally wouldn’t,” Wakamatsu said. “We’ve had the opportunity to see a lot of the younger players and I feel really good about the direction we’re heading as a team and to be able to establish that prior to (Johjima) and (Suzuki) coming back, it was a blessing in a sense. I think they’ll fit right in and see there is some camaraderie and some work ethic with that.”
Suzuki’s arrival overshadowed Sidney Ponson’s debut with the Royals. The burly right-hander pitched five strong innings before running into trouble in the sixth and giving up four runs in the inning, including a two-run homer to Russell Branyan. Seattle scored five times in the sixth to draw even at 7-all, and after Kansas City took a 9-7 lead in the top of the ninth, the Mariners scored three to win.
Roger Cedeno had a two-run double in the ninth for Seattle and Mike Sweeney won it with two-out single to score Cedeno.
“The first five was good,” Ponson said. “The last inning I tried to do a little bit too much. I wanted to finish with a bang, but it didn’t work out that way. My sinker was not sinking the way it was. It was going side-to-side. I give up base hits and walk a guy. That’s not too good.”
Ponson was far more consistent than Seattle starter Felix Hernandez. Pitching for the first time since throwing in the WBC on March 16, Hernandez couldn’t find the strike zone in the first inning and allowed 12 hits and seven earned runs in six erratic innings.
Notes: Seattle RHP Mark Lowe didn’t help his chances of earning
the closer’s role, giving up three hits and two runs in the ninth inning. Lowe did pick up the victory, but he’s given up earned runs in six of his last eight appearances. … The Mariners sent four players to their minor league camp, most notably INF Matt Tuiasosopo, who was hitting over .400 this spring. He was optioned to Triple-A Tacoma.
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