If pitching in Safeco Field is a soft landing to a young pitcher, then Ryan Franklin was working without a chute three years ago.
The Kingdome was a horrible place to toss a kid onto the mound and more than a few, including Franklin, suffered because of it.
“Put it this way, it was a little tougher than what Soriano went through,” Franklin said. “It was tough for me.”
Earlier this month, 22-year-old Rafael Soriano pitched in his debut with the confidence of a guy making a tandem sky dive into a mountain of pillows. He threw three scoreless innings against the Blue Jays, challenging hitters like he was working in the Grand Canyon.
That’s what Safeco Field feels like to a pitcher.
“If I’d been here instead of the Kingdome,” Franklin said, remembering his major league debut in 1999, “I wouldn’t have given up my first homer.”
He remembers it with disgust.
“A jam-shot right down the left-field line,” Franklin said.
Franklin doesn’t believe his pitching growth was stunted by the Kingdome, although it was two more years before he made it to the majors and stayed.
“I know you feel a lot more comfortable pitching here,” Franklin said.
Comfort means confidence, and when a young pitcher has neither, he’s in trouble. In the Kingdome, a cheap home run often caused a kid to nibble on the edges of the strike zone, walk hitters and dig a path back to the minors.
“The domino effect starts happening,” Franklin said. “But pitching here you don’t have to think about those things.”
Pitchers work with a sense of security at Safeco Field, where the vast outfield dimensions and heavy marine air help long fly balls to fall on the warning track and not in the seats.
So when there’s a need – as the Mariners experienced this month when Paul Abbott and Jeff Nelson hit the disabled list – bring on the young arms.
“It’s a field that’s not going to tear away the psyche of a young pitcher because you’re not going to give up a five-spot on two poorly hit baseballs that go out of the ballpark or roll through the turf,” Mariners pitching coach Bryan Price said.
There are other factors, too.
The kids who turned manager Lou Piniella’s hair gray in the 1990s weren’t ready for the majors.
“We had a ton of them,” Piniella said. “We had guys up here from A ball and brought them right to the big leagues. And into the Kingdome.”
And, Price adds, sometimes into a group of teammates who didn’t always welcome the kids with the care and coddling that the Mariners of 2002 seem to provide.
“We’ve got a veteran team that has gone out and tried to look after these guys and help them,” Price said. “I don’t think there’s that rookie hazing that you hear about. They’re not going to work these guys over and make their lives miserable. There are certain parts of being a rookie that’s just being a rookie, but they’ll share information and make them feel welcome and support them.”
It’s all about winning, and these Mariners know a young pitcher like Soriano will get them there.
“When you come into a losing environment where the team is struggling or has some injuries and they’re just trying to hang on, that type of attitude is going to be reflected on the people who come in,” Price said. “Here, it’s a winning attitude.”
The greatest fears seemed to have come true.
The Blue Jays hammered on Arthur Rhodes when he couldn’t throw the ball past anyone in one game during the Mariners’ last homestand.
Had injuries to Paul Abbott and Jeff Nelson – and the subsequent reshuffling of duties in the bullpen – affected Rhodes as swiftly as the Jays caught up to his fastball?
Not really, it turns out.
A simple matter of poor pitch selection was the problem. Rhodes threw 17 pitches in that outing, 16 of them fastballs, and the Jays hammered him for three runs on three hits and two walks in just 1/3inning.
Manager Lou Piniella stressed that Rhodes needed to mix a few breaking balls into his repertoire, and that’s all it seemed to take. He allowed only one baserunner in his next three outings.
Now for the bigger issue involving Rhodes. The Mariners must be careful not to wear him out during a time of great need for his powerful left arm.
Without a second left-hander in the bullpen, the Mariners made do in the season’s first month with Abbott, Nelson and Shigetoshi Hasegawa, all right-handers who are proficient against left-handed hitters.
However, with Abbott and Nelson on the disabled list and Hasegawa now in the short setup role that Nelson had filled, the burden falls on Rhodes. And, it seems, they could use him every day.
Obviously, they won’t.
“If a guy is down, a guy is down,” Price said. “If you don’t have the respect of the guys on your team, and if you’re willing to go out there and abuse them to win a baseball game in May …”
He didn’t need to finish that thought.
In the September chase just to make the playoffs in 2000, the Mariners needed Rhodes almost every day and they paid a price in October. His velocity was down and the Yankees jumped all over his fastball.
Over-use Rhodes in May? Yeah, right.
“It’s one thing if you’re in the postseason, but if you’re going to win a game in May and blow a guy out doing it, that doesn’t make any sense,” Price said.
The latest fashion statement in baseball is baggy pants with the legs held so low over the shoe tops they’re strapped under players’ cleats with elastic stirrups (see Ruben Sierra, Carlos Guillen, Freddy Garcia, Desi Relaford and Luis Ugueto of the Mariners).
There are holdouts, however.
You would expect to see the old-fashioned stirrup socks on a veteran like Jamie Moyer, but over in one corner of the Mariners clubhouse the other day was 24-year-old Ben Davis pulling on a pair.
“I like it because I think it’s a good look,” Davis said.
If that’s the case, then how does Davis explain his look during the last homestand, when he played with his pantlegs past his ankles in one game and above his calves in another?
Bad stirrups, he said.
He had gotten a new pair that was cut too high, so he took them home, cut and sewed them.
After Mariners closer Kazuhiro Sasaki got a two-year contract extension last Saturday, it brought up another business issue.
What about a long-term deal for starter Freddy Garcia?
There’s nothing in the works for Garcia, and for good reason. He’s not eligible for free agency until after the 2004 season, meaning the team can keep offering him one-year deals for at least two more years without fear of losing him.
A player must be in the majors for six seasons to be eligible for free agency.
Garcia signed a one-year, $3.8 million deal last winter.
The question has come up more than once since Jay Buhner was honored earlier this month. Why didn’t the Mariners retire his number?
Buhner himself admits there are others that should be retired – Alvin Davis’ No. 21, Ken Griffey Jr.’s No. 24 and Edgar Martinez No. 11 – before his No. 19 is considered.
Then there’s the matter of the club’s criteria for retiring a number. Based on the team’s tough standards, there might be a World Series banner hanging from the rafters before anyone’s number does.
The club says it will retire a player’s uniform number only if he has been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and been in a Mariners uniform at least five years, or come close to such election and has spent substantially his entire career with the Mariners.
Given that, it looks like No. 19 will remain in the fans’ hearts.
Look for Buhner to be the next man to make the Mariners’ Hall of Fame, which now is a two-man club: Davis and broadcaster Dave Niehaus.
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