Trying to avoid being left out

  • By Kirby Arnold / Herald Writer
  • Sunday, March 19, 2006 9:00pm
  • Sports

PEORIA, Ariz. – There aren’t many roster questions for the Seattle Mariners to answer with 15 exhibition games remaining, although an interesting one looms.

Will a left-handed relief pitcher stand up and prove he belongs on this team?

Please?

The Mariners begin the regular season two weeks from today, and the left-handed setup role remains almost anybody’s job to win. It’s a four-man competition among Matt Thornton, George Sherrill, Jake Woods and Luis Gonzalez.

“Somebody’s got to separate themselves from the pack, and none of them has done it so far,” manager Mike Hargrove said. “But we’ve still got time.”

Their time is getting short, however.

Thornton won that role a year ago but he hasn’t done anything this spring to show that he has shaken the bouts of inconsistency that left him 0-4 with a 5.21 earned run average last season. He gave up five runs and six hits in one inning to the Giants on Saturday, leaving him with a 14.14 ERA in four games.

Sherrill, effective against lefties in the 50 regular-season games he’s pitched over the past two seasons, also has struggled this month with a 16.20 ERA.

Woods has a 14.20 ERA in two exhibition games. Gonzalez has never been tested at the major league level.

Still, Gonzalez, a Rule 5 draft pick acquired from the Colorado Rockies in the offseason, has been the most impressive of the left-handers, allowing just four hits in 62/3 innings and, in four outings, producing a 2.70 ERA.

Hargrove said he’s never put together a team by giving a job to a player who didn’t prove he deserved it.

“Usually it’s a veteran player who’s had success and for whatever reason had a bad spring,” Hargrove said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever left spring training with a guy winning a job by default. That’s not good. And I don’t think we’ll have that this year.”

The Mariners will have interesting decisions concerning Thornton and Gonzalez, because they would stand to lose both if they don’t make the major league roster.

Thornton is out of minor league options, meaning the Mariners must expose him to other teams via the waiver process if they try to send him down. Gonzalez, being a Rule 5 pick, must be offered back to the Rockies if the Mariners don’t put him on the 25-man major league roster.

Thornton, Hargrove said, remains an enticing yet frustrating mystery. With a 96 mph fastball, he’s one of the rare left-handers who can face left-handed hitters with late-inning power. Last year, however, lefties hit .262 against him compared with .235 by right-handers.

“You see that arm, but up to this point we haven’t seen the consistency we need to see,” Hargrove said. “It’s not a question of him not working hard. It’s not a question of him not wanting it bad enough. It’s just a question of him putting it all together on a consistent basis.”

Slingin’ in the rain: Jamie Moyer dodged downpours and pitched four solid innings Sunday against the Rockies.

He originally was scheduled to pitch in a minor league game on one of the Mariners’ practice fields, but that plan was scrapped after morning-long rain. He started against the Rockies in the A game, giving up two runs and three hits in the first inning before holding the Rockies to two hits the rest of his time in the game.

“The balls they hit were elevated in the (strike) zone,” Moyer said. “It was a matter of making the adjustments to keep the ball down and get some ground balls.”

He had planned to pitch five innings but, after yielding a leadoff triple to Choo Freeman in the top of the fifth, rain intensified and umpires halted the game. Moyer left during the rain delay and threw in the bullpen near the Mariners’ clubhouse.

“I got my 75 pitches in,” he said. “Work is work.”

Of note: The Mariners expected Adrian Beltre back in the clubhouse today after he’d been away from the team to play for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic. The Dominicans were eliminated Saturday in the semifinals by Cuba. … When Felix Hernandez gave up two runs in the second inning Saturday, they were the first earned runs allowed by Mariners’ starters after 17 straight scoreless innings. … The Rockies’ lineup Sunday included two catchers with the Mariners last year, Miguel Ojeda and Yorvit Torrealba. Also at the game was left-handed pitcher Randy Williams, who pitched briefly for the M’s two years ago.

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