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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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September 25, 2008 11:35 AM

Ryan Rowland-Smith: Mariners "lacked much needed leadership''

Posted by Geoff Baker

Sorry to interrupt a morning full of Ichiro-gnashing, but I thought some of you would enjoy Ryan Rowland-Smith's latest blog entry on prolebrity.com.

Here's his take on clubhouse leadership:

"Our team this year lacked much needed leadership . We had great veterans on our team but just never seemed to speak up in front of the team when it was really needed. Say what you want, or read what you want about Jose Guillen but if you were doing something you weren't supposed to do on or off the field, he wouldn't sit around and gossip to other guys, he would get in your face and let you know about it. He had no problem speaking up in front of a group either . He played the game hard everyday and took every loss to heart. He didnt take any sh*t from anyone and he had some kind of relationship with every single guy on the team. So, hopefully a vet steps up when needed, kicks someone's ass for not playing hard and that'll set the tone!''

Sounds familliar.

Here's more:

"It's just funny looking back 6 months ago, we were about one week into the season, just 6 games out of spring training and everyone was acting like we were Screwed. It just snowballed, next thing you know, we're 2 months into the season, and we were screwed. So many successful teams have gotten off to a bad start and worked through the growing pains but we never did.''

NOTE (12:20 p.m.) The original post by Rowland-Smith had a paragraph stating the team needed to "grow some balls!'' This phrase was highlighted to me in an email put out by Prolebrity's PR people. The post has since been edited to say the Mariners need to "keep on grinding!''

So, that explains any confusion some of you may be having.

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