The first thought I have on what I saw was that I was quite impressed with Seattle. Namely Seattle’s defense. Yuniesky Bettancourt’s arm at short-stop is absurdly strong, and Jose Lopez looked like he covered as much ground as anybody playing second. 

The outfield at one point, Adam Jones-Ichiro-and Jose Guillen from left to right, may have been the best threesome of outfield arms in baseball. I have a man-crush on Jones and have for a couple of years. He is Seattle’s top-ranked prospect, and he was called up to the majors less than two weeks ago to play a few days a week at each of the OF positions.

 All the kid did in the minors was hit, and all he’s done since coming up is get on base and come plateward. I had no idea what a good athlete he was, but he was telling me about his background at Samuel Morris HS. That’s the same HS that Marc McLemore and Sam Horn went to. He even had the same teacher as McLemore did, and he he was telling me about how she always compared the two. I talked to Jones for about 6-minutes before BP one day, and he couldn’t have been more gracious with his time.

He however was not the nicest Marnier I came across. That distinction belongs to veteran-outfielder Raul Ibanez, who may well have been the kindest person in the entire ballpark. An intern w/ XM was sitting next to me in the M’s dugout during BP (my favorite spot to sit in the park) and Ibanez came down the steps and into the dugout sweating. He looked over at us as he put a gatorade cup under the cooler nozzle and asked how we were.

“It’s going to be hot today,” he said. “I’ll be okay though, I played in KC for three years so this won’t faze me.” He asked how we were, then trotted back out to the field. What player takes the time to question somebody, or betteryet, makes small-talk with randoms in the dugout who aren’t talking to the player?? None that I have ever met.

Note- Ibanez hit two HR’s that night. Karma is a good thing.

The last experience I had during my trip to see Seatle worth telling you about was that Jose Guillen’s son may end up a major-leaguer one day. He was following his dad everywhere, from the cage to the bench to the outfield and back to the cage. He was dragging a bat behind him, almost as tall as him, the whole time. One of his dad’s bats I’d guess. Jose introduced us in the dugout after I talked to him for a minute about the race in the west, and at first his son wouldn’t really talk to me. Within five minutes he was playing catch with me in the dugout, and he threw hard enough that the head-trainer gave me an extra glove to use to play with him. Needless to say, he could one day be a prospect on my baseball show, Minors and Majors.

A few other random thoughts…

-Jeff Weaver looks more like a surfer than he does a pitcher… And based on his numbers this season maybe he should try surfing
-JJ Putz seems like he’s the guy responsible for keeping everybody loose in the Seattle clubhouse. He was the loudest Mariner in the locker room and walked around talking to everyone, rather than just sticking at his locker.                                                                                                                                       -Ichiro speaks zero english during interview time, and good enough english to communicate on the field… interesting

Bottom line?

Good group of guys who can play a ton of defense, and have just enough pitching-and-hitting to get by. I’m pulling for them down the stretch to grab the AL wild-card, but it won’t be easy.