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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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August 22, 2008 6:19 PM

Interesting lineup

Posted by Geoff Baker

A shot above of Jeremy Reed working on his throws to second base.

Jim Riggleman is apparently willing to try anything he can to avoid losing eight in a row. So, he's flipped his lineup around pretty good. Yuniesky Betancourt is now batting second. Adrian Beltre is third and Raul Ibanez is the clean-up guy. The thinking is that Betancourt will see more fastballs with the two big guys behind them. Beltre was supposedly more worried about what the move would do to Ibanez than himself. No one wants to mess Ibanez's swing up right now.

Don't expect Ichiro to be stealing any bases. They would all have to be on the first pitch. If that. Nah, I'm just kidding around. Sort of.

On the ninth inning throw by Reed last night, Riggleman said he looked at the replays and came away thinking that the fledgling first baseman didn't make all that bad a play.

"The throw was a little low and I think on another day Betancourt would have handled the ball and the runner would have been out,'' Riggleman said.

And that, folks, is what they call diplomacy. Below, you can see Betancourt chatting with infield coach Sam Perlozzo.

Oh yeah. Erik Bedard made between 40 and 50 throws from a distance of 80 feet. It was "a good day" according to Riggleman, who has no idea on a timeframe for any bullpen session.

The lineups:

ATHLETICS (58-69)

14 Mark Ellis 2B
7 Bobby Crosby SS
8 Emil Brown RF
35 Frank Thomas DH
24 Kurt Suzuki C
32 Jack Cust LF
28 Carlos Gonzalez CF
10 Daric Barton 1B
56 Cliff Pennington 3B

47 Gio Gonzalez LHP

MARINERS (46-81)

51 Ichiro RF
5 Yuniesky Betancourt SS
29 Adrian Beltre 3B
28 Raul Ibanez LF
4 Jose Lopez 2B
50 Wladimir Balentien CF
9 Jeff Clement C
39 Bryan LaHair DH
13 Miguel Cairo 1B

31 Ryan Feierabend LHP

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