For a last-place team, the Mariners sure are generating a lot of copy.
In tomorrow’s newspaper, for example, we’ll have (1) a story on manager Don Wakamatsu’s future as told by Wak and general manager Jack Zduriencik, (2) a notebook dealing with another round of surgery for Erik Bedard plus Adam Moore’s callup from Tacoma and an injury update that includes Shawn Kelley’s scheduled rehab appearance Thursday in Everett, (3) a story on the Mariners’ 3-2 victorythat was delivered with quality pitching and defense plus Franklin Gutierrez’s squeeze bunt and home run, (4) and our weekly minor league report featuring Johermyn Chavez, who is playing impressively at Class A High Desert. That’s in addition to a nice interview with former Mariner — and current Ranger Mark Lowe — that won’t make the paper until Thursday.
Some highlights and personal thoughts on all of those:
After listening to Zduriencik continually say that “Don is our manager,” I hardly get the impression that Wak’s job is any safer now than it was 48 hours ago. I wrote my opinion on Wak’s situation in a column July 25, saying that this train wreck of a season was the product of a flawed roster and lacking offense. Still, we’re left with the words, “Don is our manager.” That’s like taking tonight’s game and saying, “The Mariners are a winning team.” Not all that reassuring, and unfairly so in my opinion.
Say what you will (and I have in the past) about Bedard’s pain threshold or his willingness to tough it out, three shoulder surgeries in a period of less than 24 months is serious, serious stuff. The guy had surgery last year to fix a torn labrum and he’ll have his left shoulder opened up again Friday as doctors look for the reason he’s still feeling pain. He hasn’t pitched in more than two years, and in the back of your mind you wonder how much longer it’ll be before he does … if he does. That’s not only serious stuff, it’s sad.
Tonight’s game illustrated just how feeble the Mariners’ offense is. They got 11 hits, yet had to execute without flaw in order to win 3-2. How many No. 5 hitters do you see dropping a squeeze bunt to score a run, then hitting a homer for another? And if we can get back to the subject of Wakamatsu, how gutsy was it for him to ask Gutierrez to bunt with the bases loaded and one out with the Mariners trailing 1-0 in the third inning? If Gutierrez pops up that bunt — as we’ve seen Mariners do way too often this season — Wak’s neck is really in a wringer. Yet, he stuck it out because he knew he couldn’t wait for a drive to the gap. And how many managers have we seen, knowing their jobs were on the line, stick with a hot pitcher and work him ragged? Wakamatsu could have sent Jason Vargas out for the seventh inning tonight, given he’d thrown only 92 pitches and was cruising, but he kept the bigger picture in mind — that it’s important to limit Vargas’ workload as he approaches a career high in innings.
Down in the minor leagues, Johermyn Chavez is playing like he’s way more than a name to be forgotten from the Brandon Morrow-Brandon League trade last December between the Mariners and Blue Jays. At Class A High Desert, the 21-year-old Chavez was batting .314 and was second in the California League with 27 home runs and fifth with 76 runs batted in. “He’s a big strong kid with a lot of tools,” said Pedro Grifol, the Mariners’ minor league director. “He’s turning himself into a heck of a prospect.”
And then there’s Mark Lowe, who was part of the Cliff Lee trade to the Rangers. Becaue he’s rehabbing from back surgery, Lowe had remained in Seattle undergoing therapy most of the time since the trade. He only met his new team today, and he admitted the past few weeks have been weird. “It has felt more like I was released a few weeks ago and somebody just now picked me up,” he said.
