Mariners Show Caution With Rodriguez, Johnson
The long, thin box held a dozen long-stemmed red roses for Alex Rodriguez, and after he opened them he smiled - but couldn’t find out who sent them.
“There’s a note that says, ‘Hope you’re up to speed soon,’ but it’s not signed,” Rodriguez said. “Maybe it’s from my fiance.”
That brought a laugh, since Rodriguez isn’t engaged. But the Seattle shortstop did inch closer Friday to being up to speed.
“I’m just glad I came out of that game (Wednesday) when I did, or I might have really hurt something,” Rodriguez said of the strain on the right side of his rib cage. “I feel a lot better today.”
Rodriguez hopes to play Sunday against the Twins. His manager, Lou Piniella, is slightly more cautious.
“The idea is to get him back and keep him playing,” Piniella said. “You can’t rush these things. I don’t know when he’ll be ready.”
As for staff ace Randy Johnson, he received no roses Friday and didn’t throw on the sidelines, postponing that test of his ailing left middle finger until today. Johnson will do little more than play catch to see if the discomfort caused by tendinitis has eased enough to let him begin preparing to pitch again.
He hasn’t appeared in a game - or thrown hard - since Aug. 20.
Dad says Junior thinks team first
Reds hitting instructor Ken Griffey Sr. says that the focus in Seattle should be on the Mariners’ playoff race, not his son’s bid to tie or break Roger Maris’ single-season home run mark.
Ken Griffey Jr. enters today’s game with 49 home runs, leaving him 12 shy of tying Maris’ mark of 61.
“There are so many scenarios that can happen but he’s just thinking about playing for the pennant,” Griffey Sr. said in Cinicinnati.
“Yeah, I think he’s capable of doing it, but people might be asking for too much, particularly since he’s in the middle of the toughest pennant race of the six. I talked to him and told him, ‘Whether you do it or you don’t do it, I just want you to have fun.”’
Notes
Shortstop Giomar Guevera joined the Mariners Friday, flying in from Venezuela on short notice. When Seattle decided it needed a reserve shortstop in the absence of Rodriguez, they put in a call to Guevera, who had just flown home after playing Class AA baseball in Florida. But because Guevera speaks Spanish much better than English, the Mariners had pitcher Felipe Lira do the talking. “Felipe called me at 2 a.m. and told me to get to Minneapolis,” Guevera said. “I thought he was joking.” … In Mariners history, only seven pitchers have ever won as many as 14 games in a season before this year, and they’d done that a combined 10 times. This year, three pitchers - Randy Johnson, Jamie Moyer and Jeff Fassero all have 14 or more.
Coming up
The third game of this four-game set begins tonight at 5 (PST) and will be televised on TCI Cable channel 25. Probable starting pitchers: Jeff Fassero (14-8, 3.91 ERA) vs. Rich Robertson (8-11, 5.53).