The Mariners introduced three more kids to the organization this afternoon – first and second-round draft picks Danny Hultzen and Brad Miller at a news conference two hours ago and right-handed pitcher Chance Ruffin to the big-league roster.
A few notes from the Hultzen-Miller gathering
, plus odds and ends before tonight’s homestand finale against the Toronto Blue Jays (and former Mariner Brandon Morrow, who’ll start for the Jays):
• Hultzen, the left-hander from Virginia who was the second overall pick in the June draft, said his deal with the Mariners didn’t come together until 8:53 p.m. (PDT) Monday – seven minutes before the deadline for teams to sign their picks or lose the rights to them.
One of the sticking points in negotiations, according to reports, was Hultzen’s desire to attend the fall semester at Virginia, then start his pro career in the winter. He’ll put that aside and finish school another time, he said. He’s a history major and says he has about two semesters to get his degree.
He’ll take part in the Mariners’ instructional league program beginning in mid-September in Peoria, Ariz., and pitch in the Arizona Fall League for the Peoria Javalenas, then report to the major league spring training camp next February.
Hultzen said he’s been lifting weights and running since the end of the college season in June, but has gotten away from baseball-related activities. Pedro Grifol, the Mariners’ minor league director, said the organization will put together a plan for Hultzen to get him ready for the Fall League.
“We’re going to take this slow,” Grifol said.
• Miller, of Clemson, said good-naturedly during the news conference that he’d prefer not to talk about the times he faced Hultzen this year. When I suggested to Hultzen later that it must mean he owned Miller, he smiled and quietly said, “ Well, yes. But he had a bad finger.”
About that bad finger…
When Hultzen pitched against Clemson for the first time this year, Miller squared around to bunt. Miller couldn’t get out of the way and Hultzen’s pitch hit a finger, breaking it.
Hultzen wasn’t sure how Miller felt about it, but they laughed about it this summer at an awards ceremony in Lubbock, Texas, after they’d both been drafted by the Mariners.
• Miller will report this week to the Mariners’ Class A team in Clinton, Iowa.
• Chance Ruffin, the player to be named later in the Mariners’ trade with the Tigers last month, was preparing for a game at Buffalo, N.Y., this time yesterday. Then he learned that he’d be going to the Mariners and he took a 10 o’clock flight this morning, arriving in Seattle by mid-afternoon. Ruffin, the Tigers’ supplemental first-round draft pick last year (48th overall), will pitch out of the bullpen. He was a closer at the University of Texas.
• Mariners manager Eric Wedge said catcher Miguel Olivo is OK and available to play tonight, although Josh Bard is starting. Olivo was hit on the mask and knocked woozy by a foul tip in the fifth inning Tuesday night.
• Injured first baseman Justin Smoak, on the disabled list after getting hit in the face by a ground ball Friday, looks pretty good but says he feel like he’s been to the dentist. Much of the left side of his face is numb, a product of the nerves being affected by the baseball that broke his nose and fractured his cheekbone.
“When it hit me, I grabbed for my teeth because I couldn’t feel anything,” Smoak said. “I thought it had knocked my teeth out.”
• Catcher Adam Moore, out for the season with a knee injury suffered in early April, will report to the Mariners’ facility in Peoria, Ariz., on Friday to continue his rehab. Moore is throwing, hitting and performing most baseball activities, and will start catching bullpens in Peoria. He expects to play games by mid-September when the fall instructional league begins there.
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