Hidin’ Out At Cutdown Time

It was Cut Day here Monday, which does not mean that if you showed up at Peoria Stadium with an open wound they’d give you free sutures.

Baseball promotions haven’t quite stooped that low yet. Then again, we haven’t seen the list of special nights at Seafirst Stadium for the upcoming season.

No, on an otherwise hum-drummishly glorious morning, the Seattle Mariners decided to burn some of the slash in their spring training locker room. The air was not exactly humid with pathos. No heavy sighs or rehearsed regret, a la the skipper in “Bull Durham” making himself feel better by saying, “This is the toughest job a manager has.”

Lou Piniella was, in fact, smiling.

The Grin Reaper.

The Mariners manager had dispatched pitching coach Stan Williams to fetch the first victim, and when the lad didn’t promptly appear, Piniella came out of his office to learn why.

“I can’t find him,” Williams alibied. “His clothes are here, but I can’t find him.” “These guys are hiding from me,” Piniella laughed.

Geez, and last year they only hid their talent from him.

But without the sunset - or was that an eclipse? - of extinguished expectations, there cannot be the sunrise of spring training. And so back are the Mariners in the Valley of Fresh Starts, where everything old is new again.

In Peoria, Jay Buhner has become an inspiration again, not for blasting home runs you’d need COMSAT to track, but for the singular will he’s shown in rehabilitating his rebuilt elbow - in time, we’re told, to be in right field on opening day.

Peoria is where the M’s have taken the concept of the retread pitcher to extremes. Instead of signing a used-up old horse some other club let go, they signed a used-up old horse they let go - Billy Swift, last year’s No. 5 starter, now a non-roster guy trying to hang on in the bullpen.

It’s where Bobby Ayala - Yes! He’s still here! - is not only trying to transform himself into a pitcher again, but back into a human being, as well. Suddenly, the media and the fans aren’t to blame for his last 3-1/2 seasons of water-torture relief work.

It’s where the Mariners are once again giving lip-service to little ball and fundamentals but still live to go long. Before Monday morning’s workout, even the pitchers crowded around a TV, enthralled with a video glorifying the home run - although the biggest laugh was awarded to a clip of former M’s backup catcher John Marzano try ing to explain how to calculate slugging percentage. Then they went out and pounded 11 more hits and two more homers in a 9-5 spanking of the Milwaukee Brewers.

It’s where Russ Davis hasn’t made an error all spring. Of course, he only made one last spring.

It’s where one of the Mariners’ many Plan B’s in the pitching department, Butch Henry, is actually holding them hostage; he has a clause in his contract that says he can be a free agent if the club doesn’t put him in the starting rotation.

Peoria ‘99 is not so much same old-same old for the M’s, but a whittling down of Peorias past to the sparest essence. It’s spring training by Samuel Beckett.

Thirteen of the 14 “position” spots on the roster are already filled, three of them by the new faces of Butch Huskey, Matt Mieske and John Mabry. The 14th will go to either Charles Gipson, Shane Monahan or Raul Ibanez.

Meanwhile, a cast of thousands - if Huck Flener is among them, it must be thousands - auditions for the 11 pitching spots. And the M’s are still looking for more.

If Garth Brooks ever clears waivers next door, don’t be surprised if he winds up in the bullpen.

It’s easy to be cynical about such a lack of meaningful change on a 76-85 team, but the fact is the M’s are playing pretty well right now. They’ve won 7 of 11 and allowed their first unearned run of the spring Monday when second baseman David Bell dropped a routine throw.

Then in the bottom half of the inning, he cracked his third home run of the spring. So there.

On the pitching front, John Halama - the player to be named later in the Randy Johnson deal - worked four innings, got ahead of virtually every hitter he faced and still managed to let almost half of them reach base. Afterward, broad caster Ron Fairly stuck his microphone under Piniella’s jaw to tape his reaction.

“Halama’s performance - I thought the results were better than the stuff today,” Piniella said. “But he knows how to pitch, and it’s a good sign when you can go out there and not be as sharp as you’d like and still pitch very representative like he did. I’m not being critical, I’m being honest. I’ve seen him throw the ball sharper. But again, this is spring training and you’re going to have your periods when you’re throwing the ball and having success and now when you’re not throwing the ball or as well as - hey, let’s start all this over, can we?”

Hey, do-overs are a spring staple.

So is second-guessing. Let’s conclude with some of that - not from us, but from that noted analyst, Ken Griffey Jr., who had this exchange with the manager the other day after fouling off a bunt attempt in the batting cage:

Lou: “You need a little work on your bunting.”

Junior: “If I’m bunting, we’re in trouble.”

Lou: “I might have you squeeze a couple of times this year.”

Junior: “Why go for one run when I can swing and get you two?”

Lou: “You got to make your manager look good sometimes. They see you squeezing, they’ll be calling me a genius.”

Junior: “They see me squeezing, they’ll be sending you home, Skip.” Now, there’s a Cut Day we’d all pay to see.