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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Big Day for Rehabilitating Hurlers

Mark Lowe, Chris Reitsma, Arthur Rhodes and Jon Huber are all scheduled to pitch in today's ballgame against the Milwaukee Brewers. As you are all well aware, these four are all coming back from tough injuries and surgeries and figure to be competing for roster spots until the end of Spring Training.

So far Lowe and Reitsma have pitched one scoreless inning a piece, Huber has yet to give up a hit in his 1.2 innings, and Rhodes has yet to pitch in a game this spring.

There have been a lot of different rumors regarding the bullpen outcome this spring, but we won't know for sure until the final roster cuts are made. I'd love to see these guys continue to build strength and pitch successfully because it will boost the level of competition among relievers even if they start the season on the DL or in AAA.

I'm routing for all of these guys. I hope at least one of them is healthy and effective enough to make the club out of Spring Training, and that one or two more can help after a month or two.

I'll go ahead and update this in a few hours with their results.

UPDATE - 11:08 pm PST: Whoa! Almost forgot about the update, thanks for the reminder in the comments! I was super busy today so I wasn't able to watch or listen to the game today, so the boxscore is all I have to go by. Rhodes fared the best, pitching a hitless, scoreless inning and inducing a couple grounders. Lowe was also perfect, getting his outs on two flyballs and one grounder. Reitsma gave up a run on two hits, which goes well with previous information. Some scouting reports are saying that Reitsma isn't hitting his spots as well as the other guys. Huber didn't get into the game after all.

Looking good either way! The more of these guys that are ready for Opening Day the better roster we'll end up with. Pitching depth is always key.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm looking forward to your update Jon,it's almost 10:00 in Marinerland and no update!! hehe hope she was worth it....

Anonymous said...

With Ramirez being gone it does make it easier for one of the to stick.

I'd probably look to start all four in the minors to ensure that they aren't rushing back.

Doing that would allow us to keep Dickey and Baek on the roster as long relievers.

If one of the four looks worthy of a callup Baek would likely be the first to go. Dickey could also implode, but they gave Sean White every chance to stay on the team as a Rule V so I'd expect the same.

If Rhodes is effective I'd like to see him up in place of RRS who would go to Tacoma in hopes of making him a starter.

Bullpen should be a strength again this year even with the loss of Sherrill. We look to have better depth to offset his loss.