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Geoff Baker covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times. He provides daily coverage of the team throughout spring training, and during the season.

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March 23, 2008 3:06 PM

Morrow throws 12-pitch outing

Posted by Geoff Baker

And there he goes, catching a ride via the new Bill Bavasi limo service. That's trainer Rick Griffin doing the driving, with Bavasi in the front seat as they cart Morrow back to the clubhouse from the field where he threw a 12-pitch inning in a Class AA game against Milwaukee's affiliate. Morrow yielded a bloop single to the first batter, then notched a flyball to right, a groundout and an infield popout. He was only supposed to go the one inning today and that's all he got.

"I didn't want to stay out there and labor too long,'' he said, adding that he felt fine even if his control was a little off.

Morrow would prefer to throw in back-to-back games. But pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre said moments ago that probably won't be possible.

The team is already planning to have Chris Reitsma and Mark Lowe go back-to-back this week. Of the two right handers, Stottlemyre feels Lowe may be slightly ahead because he's had more time to recover since his elbow surgery than Reitsma has. But the back-to-back outings should be quite telling.

The M's seem committed to bringing one of the two north. That means, Stottlemyre said, that the full composition of the bullpen probably won't be known by the time the team leaves Peoria on Thursday and heads to San Francisco and Las Vegas. Mariners manager John McLaren had hoped to know his full roster before Thursday.

Carlos Silva (pictured above) had a rough day stats-wise, pitching a Class AAA game against the San Diego affiliate. Silva went five innings, yielding six earned runs on 10 hits, with two walks and seven strikeouts. He threw 107 pitches, many of them cutters. Silva was actually pleased with his outing, saying his cutter is really coming along and that he worked at keeping his hands together on the mound so he could remember the grip he had on pitches that worked.

"I'm very strong,'' he said of how he felt in his final spring outing. "Even though it was a lot of pitches, I'm very strong right now.''

Stottlemyre said about six of the hits Silva allowed were on ground balls that might not have been hits on a major league field. The ground on the field used for the game was hard and the balls did not spend much time in the infield. Silva also complained about the strike zone of the umpire being used, saying he was calling strikes up in the zone but not down.

If you throw too many strikes up high in the big leagues, he said, "the ball will disappear'' off a slugger's bat. Anyway, the two of them seemed happy, even if the linescore looks awful.

By the way, the M's got thumped, 8-2, by the Angels in Tempe, Ariz. today.

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