M’s take lefty No. 2

SEATTLE — About noon Monday, Seattle Mariners scouting director Tom McNamara decided to call a good friend in Pittsburgh, Greg Smith.

Smith is the Pirates’ scouting director and the person who’d be responsible later Monday for making the first pick in baseball’s annual amateur draft. That selection had a clear impact on the Mariners, who would pick second, and McNamara hoped to learn where the Pirates were going with their first selection. Nearly every draft preview forecast the Pirates taking UCLA pitcher Gerrit Cole, but the Pirates remained ultra secretive about their intentions in days leading to the draft.

Still, McNamara decided to call his buddy, Smith, in Pittsburgh.

“It was about noon, and he told me they were taking Cole,” McNamara said.

McNamara tried to hide his excitement over the phone but, ultimately, couldn’t.

“I congratulated him,” McNamara said. “Then I told him, ‘Your pick is real good. But not as good as ours.’”

With the Pirates taking Cole, it cleared the way for the Mariners to draft the player they wanted all along — left-handed pitcher Danny Hultzen of the University of Virginia.

It was a surprise pick to many — even to Hultzen, who didn’t expect to go that high. Most pre-draft speculation, up to the seconds before the Mariners’ pick was announced, linked them to the top-rated position player, Rice third baseman Anthony Rendon.

By the time Rendon was picked, sixth by the Washington Nationals, the Mariners celebrated the draft of a pitcher they believe can be an important part of their big-league staff. Baseball America rated Hutzen as the player closest to being ready for the major leagues.

Asked if he could envision a starting rotation of Felix Hernandez, Michael Pineda and Hultzen at the top of the Mariners’ rotation in a few years, McNamara smiled.

“I heard somebody say that and I have to admit, I got some goosebumps,” he said. “It sounds pretty good.”

Mariners executives used the term “pedigree” several times to describe Hultzen.

He’s a 6-foot-3, 200-pound, 21-year-old lefty with a 91-93 mph fastball that occasionally hits 95, and an above-average slider and changeup. He’s an academic All-American at Virginia, son of a doctor and a psychologist and a kid who shunned his 10th-round selection by the Diamondbacks in 2008 because he was determined to get a college education.

“It was very, very important to go to college,” he said. “I learned so much not only about baseball but about being a man and growing up, things that helped me mature both on and off the field.”

McNamara describes Hultzen as a mild-mannered kid.

Off the field.

“He kind of reminds me of a hockey player,” McNamara said. “When he’s on the mound he’s very intense, very competitive. But when you meet him, like most hockey players, he’s a low-key nice guy. When he gets on the field he turns into a different guy.”

Hultzen also is a finalist for the second straight year for the Golden Spikes Award as the nation’s top amateur player (UCLA’s Trevor Bauer and Texas’ Taylor Jungmann are the other finalists).

He’s 31-5 with a 2.18 earned run average in three seasons at Virginia, including 11-3, 1.57 this year going into Friday night’s Super Regional game against Cal-Irvine.

Despite being an East Coast kid — Hultzen played high school ball in Bethesda, Md. — he knows a few things about the Mariners.

“The first major league hat I ever got was a Seattle Mariners hat,” he said. “I remember watching Ken Griffey Jr., Jay Buhner and Randy Johnson. Griffey is a childhood hero of mine. I was like a lot of other kids who tried to copy his swing.”

Hultzen has such a good swing that he also has played outfield, first base and DH for Virginia, hitting .336 this season with one home run and 34 RBI in 116 at-bats. He’s in consideration for the John Olerud Two-Way Player of the Year award.

“He can hit and he can run,” McNamara said. “He’s an above-average major league runner.”

Lofty as Hultzen is among pitchers in the draft, his selection still stunned a lot of people who expected the Mariners to select Rendon.

General manager Jack Zduriencik wouldn’t discuss Rendon because he’s controlled by another club.

“You can take the best position player and you can take the best pitcher,” Zduriencik said. “There was a debate. We had choices. In the end, to get a pitcher of this caliber, a left-handed starter with his history, it made sense to add a left-handed pitcher.”

As for passing up a hitter, Zduriencik pointed out the Mariners have 49 more picks to make in the draft, which resumes this morning with the second round.

“You don’t make the organization with one selection,” Zduriencik said. “You don’t answer all the questions that an organization has with one selection. You don’t do it in one year.

“You just have to say for a lot of reasons why you make a selection. It goes back to what we think (Hultzen) is going to be. We think he’s going to be a very nice major league pitcher, and that’s why you make the call. In our opinion, this is the best left-hander in the country.”

Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com/marinersblog and follow his Twitter updates at @kirbyarnold.