Impatient Boone cools heels after benching

SEATTLE – Bret Boone spent Day 1 of his banishment to the batting cage as an angry man.

“I’m not mad at the skipper,” Boone said. “I’m disappointed in myself for putting him in the situation of thinking about doing this.”

Mariners manager Mike Hargrove followed through Saturday on what he said he would do with his slumping second baseman. He pulled Boone from the lineup and assigned him to a week of work to improve his .227 batting average. Jose Lopez started at second base Saturday.

Boone has never willingly taken a day off, even when he’s been nagged by injuries or fatigue, but he admits this will be an opportunity to fix his flaws and ease his mind.

“I’ve never done this before when I haven’t been hurt,” he said. “I’ll get my workouts in, do a lot of work in the cage and let my mind relax for a few days. That can be good. You go crazy because you can’t play, but at the same time you’re relaxing from the day-after-day grind, which is what baseball is.”

Hargrove said Boone probably would sit out the rest of this homestand, which runs through Thursday, and a few games of the next road trip.

Boone said he needs to solve mechanics problems that are preventing him from driving the ball to the gaps, especially to the opposite field.