In the opening week of Spring Training games, the Mariners have been making progress and maintaining a steady camp down in Peoria. The biggest focus manager Don Wakamatsu has pertained to is precautionary care and maintenance. If not a premier talented club, Wak makes his top priority a healthy squad moving into practice games and the beginning of the regular season.
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First and foremost, M’s ace Felix Hernandez was advised to slow down his training a bit and was restricted to long toss and minor throwing drills over the weekend. No injury or discomfort has been reported from either player or manager, as the decision appears to be more of a precautionary measure.
Shannon Drayer of MyNorthwest.com reports Wakamatsu stating, “We are trying to take him slow. We are trying to cut his innings down a bit, that’s the biggest thing … I thought his first bullpen was 100 mph. Rick (M’s trainer Griffin) and I talked about it and we said let’s go to a long toss program and slow it down a little bit.”
Felix threw a career high 238 innings in 2009, and hasn’t thrown since the final game of last season. Interestingly enough, Hernandez said that he was throwing nowhere near 100% in his first bullpen session in Peoria which is contradictory to Wak’s initial reaction. Since Felix is the heart and soul of this starting rotation, his health is of the utmost importance moving toward a contending season, and better to be safe than sorry.
M’s fans can appreciate a caring coach to prevent potential exhaustion, but also shouldn’t sacrifice crucial practice time to build our ace for the upcoming season. However, Felix is scheduled to throw a bullpen session on Tuesday and Thursday this week, and we will report how each pan out.
In addition to Hernandez limited to secondary training, centerfielder Franklin Gutierrez has been experiencing a sore shoulder, which he claimed “nothing more than normal spring training soreness.” He is currently restricted to throwing drills and is expected to fully participate with the rest of the team later this week.
The Mariners are scheduled for their inaugural spring training game against the San Francisco Giants this Wednesday at 12:05 pm, given that the weather cooperates.
Reach Jacob Kehle at nextseasonsports@gmail.com
