Dream day
Matt Tuiasosopo had heard a rumor that he might start Friday night’s game for the Mariners, so he began preparing early in the day.
He went online and called up some YouTube videos of the Yankees’ starting pitcher, Andy Pettitte.
“He looked pretty nasty. He was striking everybody out,” Tuiasosopo said.
As unpleasant as that sight was, what Tuiasosopo saw when he looked at the lineup card Friday afternoon at Safeco Field was nothing but a dream. His name was on it for the first time as a big leaguer.
“This is pretty much everything I’ve dreamed of right here,” said Tuiasosopo, the former Woodinville High School football and baseball star who the Mariners drafted in the third round in 2004.
He started at third base while manager Jim Riggleman moved regular third baseman Adrian Beltre to DH for a game. Riggleman plans to do that with his starters this month in order to get occasional playing time for September minor league callups like Tuiasosopo, second baseman Luis Valbuena and catcher Rob Johnson.
“We’re going to get them in there when we can,” Riggleman said. “At the same time, I’m not going to ignore the fact that we’ve got some veterans who’ve played hard for us all year and have played through some pains. I’m not going to take September away from them. We’ll get a good look at them, but we’re not going to take all the at-bats away from the veterans, either.”
Tuiasosopo batted .337 with seven home runs in August for the Class AAA Tacoma Rainiers, a late surge that gave him a .302 average for the season.
“It wasn’t any one thing that clicked for me,” he said. “It was a round of batting practice in the cage with Alonzo (Powell, the Tacoma hitting coach) that went really well, and it just seemed that I caught fire and put together a strong couple of months.”
Now Tuiasosopo’s with the team he grew up idolizing. He made a few reporters feel old when he described being in the Kingdome when the Mariners beat the Yankees in the AL Division Series in 1995.
“My dad and my brother and I were at that last game in ‘95 when Junior scored,” he said.
His age then?
“Nine.”
Bedard throws: Erik Bedard threw off a mound Friday afternoon for the first time since he walked off it — July 4 — with a sore left shoulder.
Bedard made just a few throws with little velocity in his brief session in the bullpen.
“It went well,” manager Jim Riggleman said. “He wasn’t spinning any (breaking) balls, just throwing on a downhill plane. He came through it OK.”
That doesn’t mean Bedard is on the road to a full recovery soon, or if it means he’ll pitch again this season.
“I don’t know yet,” was all Riggleman would say.
Of note: A reminder that tonight’s game starts at 7:10. Some early copies of the Mariners schedule listed a 6:10 start. … Catcher Jeff Clement’s sore left knee troubled him enough that he didn’t start Friday night. … Riggleman said pitcher Jarrod Washburn, who suffered a strained abdominal muscle in his last start, probably would miss one turn in the rotation.
Kirby Arnold, Herald Writer
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