I’m sitting out tonight’s Mariners-White Sox game while Mike Cane of the sports staff takes over the game story/notebook duty for tomorrow’s paper. Actually, I’m at the ballpark, but spending the night in the ESPN 710 radio booth for a behind-the-scenes feature in Sundays’ newspaper what goes into a game broadcast.
Meanwhile, I’m also finishing some work for tomorrow’s newspaper, including a feature on Andy Bottin, the Stanwood resident who is managing the rookie-level Peoria Mariners toward a division championship in the Arizona League. There’s also our weekly minor league report, and I ran across an interesting thing while combing through stats of teh Mariners’ farm teams. Josh Fields, last year’s first-round draft pick, is on the disabled list.
Fields has progressed through his first pro season with so-so results — a 2-2 record and a 6.48 ERA in 31 relief appearances at Class AA West Tennessee. Just getting the kid through the season unscathed would be an accomplishment for the Mariners, who drafted him with their first-round pick in 2008.
Well, scratch the unscathed part.
Fields is on the disabled list after tweaking his left oblique last Thursday. The Mariners say it’s not a severe strain and they’d like to get him pitching again before the end of West Tennessee’s season. However, that could be difficult because West Tennessee has only 25 games remaining and there may not be enough time for Fields to get back by the finale on Sept. 7.
“It’s not a complete obluqie strain where it’s a month and a half, and he’s feeling a lot better,” said Pedro Grifol, the Mariners’ minor league director. “We’re going to try to get him back.”
The Mariners won’t rush it, but they also want Fields to be healthy enough to pitch for the Peoria Javelinas in the Arizona Fall League, which runs Oct. 13-Nov. 21.
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