SEATTLE — At the rate the Mariners have produced runs this year, they’ll score 550 over the 162-game season. To put that in perspective, it would be a 34-year franchise low excluding strike years, although even the 1994 team scored more runs in a season shortened to 112 games.
So now that Justin Smoak is in uniform after the Mariners’ trade Friday that sent Cliff Lee to the Texas Rangers, how soon can he become the home-run-hitting monster the M’s need so badly?
“I caution it a little bit, just for the fact that I was over in Texas when Texeira came up the first time,” said Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu, who was the Rangers’ bench coach in 2003 when Mark Texeira was a rookie. “I think he’s going through that, too.”
Smoak has been compared with Texeira, the Rangers’ 2001 first-round draft pick and now a power-hitting force with the New York Yankees, but so far his first major league season has been a struggle.
Smoak, who started at first base and batted sixth Saturday night in his Mariners debut, was hitting .209 with eight home runs and 34 runs batted in. A switch-hitter, he has struggled mightily as a right-handed hitter, batting .139.
“With the adjustment period with the trade and everything else, there’s a lot of things that we’re going to monitor,” Wakamatsu said. “But the rest is just (a matter of) playing him every day, getting him comfortable and letting him embrace being a Seattle Mariner.”
You’d think it would take some effort for the soft-spoken 23-year-old from South Carolina to embrace being traded from the first-place Rangers to the last-place Mariners.
“Your mindset every day is to come to the park, play hard and try to win,” he said. “Coming from the team I was on, they won a lot of games. But you’re never out of it until you’re out of it, and right now this team is not out of it.”
Officially, no. But with the Mariners 16 games out of first place entering Saturday, it’s the future they’re playing for more than anything. They believe Smoak can be a run-producing anchor to their offense but know that for now, he needs to relax and feel part of the team.
Wakamatsu said he spoke with some Rangers, including veteran Michael Young, to get a feel for Smoak before he arrived Saturday.
“Michael texted me back and said, ‘You’ve got a good one here. You got a guy who’s got a chance to be special for a long time,’” Wakamatsu said. “That’s exactly what our reports said.”
Smoak played just 135 minor league games before the Rangers called him up this year, and the transition has been daunting. He batted .293 with 17 homers and 68 RBI in 492 minor league at-bats, including a .300 average with two homers and five RBI at Class AAA Oklahoma City early this season before the Rangers called him up on April 23.
The biggest difference, he said, was the speed of the game in the big leagues.
“I’m trying to slow the game down,” he said. “You feel good at times and the game’s going real slow. But when you start trying to do too much, it catches back up with you. I’ve had some ups and I’ve had some downs. You’ve got to even that out. Right now, that’s one thing I’m trying to do.”
He also arrives without feeling pressure to produce, even though the Mariners badly need his bat and gave up a superstar pitcher to get it.
“Hopefully I can be here a long time,” he said. “There’s always going to be pressure no matter what position you play or who you are. Growing up, I hoped I would get a chance to play in the big leagues every day. I’ve got that chance and I want to go out and have fun.”
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com/marinersblog
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