Just The Ticket ‘Camp Velocity’ Raises Piniella’s Hopes For Mariners Pitching

On a spring training bus ride back from yet another loss during the first week of 1993 exhibition games, Seattle Mariners manager Lou Piniella turned to Sammy Ellis, who was his pitching coach Sammy Ellis.

“Just drop me at the airport,” Piniella instructed. “I can’t help this team.”

It was Piniella humor, part of his personality that served him well early in his first spring as Mariners manager. Told when he hired on that a team that lost 98 games a year earlier had a minor-league system filled with good young pitchers, it didn’t take Piniella long to realize it was a system filled with … pitchers.

That first spring, Piniella stayed. Pitchers headed to the airport with frequency.

Among the casualties that first spring: Yorkis Perez, Andy Nezelek, Mike Remlinger, Reggie Harris, Dennis Powell, Mike Schooler, and those were the guys who didn’t make the team. Those who did included Rich DeLucia, John Cummings, Mike Hampton, Tim Leary, Russ Swan and Dave Wainhouse.

At the end of camp, “we had to give jobs away on the pitching staff,” Piniella recalled last week. “In fact, we’ve had to give jobs away every year I’ve been here.”

Kissing frogs to find princes, the Mariners have weeded through their minorleague pitching warehouse and traded and released dozens of arms during the Piniella years, looking for the kind of arsenal the team has in camp this spring.

Call it “Camp Velocity,” where 13 of the 27 pitchers can throw harder than 90 mph. Piniella loves velocity.

“I love control, too,” he said. “Velocity doesn’t help if you can’t throw strikes. This is the most pitching depth we’ve had since I’ve been here. It’s the hardest throwing group since I’ve been here. We finally do have a lot of good young arms.”

In Piniella’s second spring, he spent as much time watching men who couldn’t pitch as those who could - faceless names now, but pitchers brought in with a chance to make the club.

Travis Buckley, Jeff Darwin, Craig Clayton, Jim Converse, Roger Salkeld, Erik Plantenberg. None made it. Among those who did were a handful of those given jobs the last week of spring: Cummings, Kevin King, Bobby Thigpen and, signed on the last day in Arizona, Rich Gossage.

A year ago, in a shortened spring, the revolving door was in place again. On opening night, the Mariners carried pitchers Cummings, Converse, Dave Fleming, King and Ron Villone.

In Camp Velocity, there are new faces again. Around veterans like Randy Johnson, Chris Bosio, Norm Charlton, Bobby Ayala and Mike Jackson, Piniella has assembled the young and the hungry.

Sterling Hitchcock and Bob Wolcott are in camp, young starters with less than two full seasons in the big leagues between them, but owning a combined 19-17 record.

So are Mike Butcher (6-1 with California last year) and Edwin Hurtado (5-2 with Toronto).

Among others with 90 mph-plus stuff are Derek Lowe, Rafael Carmona, Salomon Torres, Dean Crow, Makoto Suzuki, Scott Davison and Matt Wagner. There are pitchers, too, who rely more on finesse, including the likes of Tim Davis, Paul Menhart, Sal Urso and Bob Wells.

“A year ago when we left camp, we took 12 pitchers with us and we had to work hard to find 12,” Piniella said. “This spring, the final cuts may be tough ones. I think this will be the best staff we’ve had since I got here.”

If not, Piniella knows how to direct them toward the airport.