Baseball : Washburn looks to left

Jarrod Washburn looked at the San Diego Padres lineup and was delighted to see three left-handed hitters facing him Saturday at Peoria, Ariz.

Among the demons that plagued the Seattle Mariners veteran left-handed pitcher last year were lefties. They hit .317 off Washburn, one of the bigger reasons he went 8-14 with a 4.67 earned run average.

“One thing I really need to work on this year is having better success against left-handers,” Washburn said after his exhibition debut, a 1-0 loss to San Diego. “If I control the inside a little better against lefties, success will come.”

He held the Padres to two hits and struck out three in two innings. Both hits were by left-handers, though, a first-inning home run by Terrmel Sledge and a second-inning broken-bat single by Russell Branyan.

“The pitch to Branyan was a fastball in and it shattered his bat,” Washburn said. “It was pretty much where I wanted to throw it and I can’t be upset by that one. It’s just that sometimes they fall for a hit.”

The ones that go much farther – like the six home runs by left-handers last year – bother Washburn more.

“I used to throw inside to lefties all the time,” he said. “For some reason, and I don’t know what it was, I got away from it last year.”

Before he went home after last season, Washburn talked at length with pitching coach Rafael Chaves about his problems with lefties.

“It’s hard to say why it happened,” Chaves said. “It’s not because he didn’t have the courage to do it. Maybe he wasn’t feeling comfortable doing it.”

Hensley keeps ears open

In just two weeks, Clay Hensley has learned what to do when Greg Maddux is talking.

“Shut your mouth and be all ears,” Hensley said, laughing at his luck in having the 333-game winner tutoring him for the first time this spring with San Diego.

Hensley applied one of his early lessons against the Mariners, throwing a newly emphasized changeup. Seattle’s hitters flailed at many of them during his two strong innings in the Padres’ 1-0 win – a rare spring training pitchers’ duel in Arizona.

“That’s a pitch I really want to get down this year,” said Hensley, slated to begin the season in a major league rotation for the first time in his career.

Hensley said he rarely used his changeup until late last season. He went 11-12 with a 3.71 ERA, but was out of the rotation in September and for the playoffs in October after David Wells arrived from Boston.

Maddux, 40, a four-time Cy Young Award winner who signed with San Diego in December, is helping Hensley get the mind-set down on when it’s best to throw off-speed pitches.

The only hit Hensley allowed in this dry-air, hitter’s paradise was a softly chopped single through the infield by Ichiro Suzuki in the first inning. Hensley finished with six consecutive outs – though Kevin Kouzmanoff, acquired from Cleveland last November to become San Diego’s starting third baseman, saved another hit with a deft pickup of a hard grounder by Jose Guillen in the second.

The game’s only run came in the first on a homer by Sledge, a Mariners draft choice in 1999.

Prior, Wood prepare for return

Mark Prior and Kerry Wood will make their spring training debuts Monday when the Chicago Cubs play Seattle.

Both pitchers are coming off injury-shortened seasons.

Prior was beset by shoulder problems and was put on the disabled list three times in 2006. Wood sustained a partially torn rotator cuff that ended his season in July.

“I told our pitching coach (Larry Rothschild) we’d answer all the same questions in one day,” Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. “They’re both nice and healthy. That’s a good start.”

M’s have hot prospects

Baseball America’s list of baseball’s 100 top prospects includes three Mariners, outfielder Adam Jones, catcher Jeff Clement and pitcher Brandon Morrow.