‘Elephant Man’ weighs in
SEATTLE – Eric O’Flaherty noticed a rash breaking out on his left arm early this summer when he was playing for the Single-A Inland Empire 66ers, but he didn’t think a lot of it.
“I’d been putting a cream on it and I had an allergic reaction,” said the 21-year-old left-handed pitcher from Walla Walla.
No big deal, he thought. Everybody gets a rash once in a while.
“Then one day I woke up and I had this elephant trunk for an arm,” he said.
O’Flaherty’s arm had swollen nearly twice its normal size, weighing about 5 pounds more than normal, he said. He wasn’t allowed to pitch for a week, and it gave his teammates an opening for plenty of abuse.
“They called me Elephant Man,” he said. “Guys were throwing peanuts at me in the bullpen.”
The swelling went down, the jokes ended and O’Flaherty went on with what became a dream summer. Promoted to Double-A San Antonio, he had seven saves and a 1.14 ERA in 25 games there, moved up to Triple-A Tacoma and, after two games, became a major leaguer. The Mariners called him up Aug. 16.
He has experienced some typical rookie moments on the mound, having allowed six hits, three walks and Alex Rodriguez’s monster home run last week when the New York Yankees were in Seattle.
Friday, however, he gave up one hit in 1 2/3 innings against Boston, finishing off the Mariners’ 6-0 victory. Among his conquests was Red Sox slugger David Ortiz on a fielder’s-choice grounder in the eighth inning.
“Just to face him was fun,” O’Flaherty said. “The score was 6-0, so I just tried to get out there and throw strikes. But I knew who it was. It’s fun to try and get those guys out and when you do, you feel like you belong.”
It marked O’Flaherty’s fourth appearance since being called up, and he said it was the first time he truly felt settled as a member of the team.
“It was the first time I really felt like I belonged here,” he said. “It kind of set in that I was here and a part of the team. I finally threw my game and pitched an outing that I was satisfied with.”
Even better, he was able to share that success with one of his best baseball buddies, fellow M’s reliever Mark Lowe. Those two climbed the minor league ladder together this season and now are teammates in the majors, to their surprise.
“I was just hoping to finish up the season in Double A,” O’Flaherty said. “At the beginning of May we started realizing there was a chance for us to shoot up this year, the way things were going.”
Notes
The Mariners passed the 2 million mark in home attendance for the 11th time in 22 seasons. … The Mariners didn’t need to see Adrian Beltre take batting practice to know he’d recovered enough from his stiff neck to start. About 30 minutes before the team took BP, he was on the field playing “flip” with many of his teammates. … Entering Saturday, the Mariners had held Boston to a .234 team batting average. Only Detroit (.228) and Minnesota (.232) were more successful against the Red Sox.