Opponent: Chicago White Sox
When: 7:05 p.m.
Where: Safeco Field
TV: Fox Sports Net (cable)
Radio: KIRO (710 AM)
Probable pitchers: Seattle right-hander Paul Abbott (12-2, 4.23 earned run average) vs. right-hander Dan Wright (2-0, 3.14).
NOTES
Ready for action: Jay Buhner seems ready for a minor league rehabilitation assignment that will include time with the Everett AquaSox.
Buhner, on the disabled list since spring training because of an injury to the arch on his left foot, ran the bases before batting practice Friday, then took his swings and fielded fly balls in left field.
Team doctors will check him today and, if given the OK, Buhner is expected to start a rehab assignment that likely will have him in Everett during the AquaSox’s next homestand.
Manager Lou Piniella said Buhner will join the Tacoma Rainiers Monday on a homestand that runs through Friday. The AquaSox begin a five-game homestand against Tri-Cities on Friday.
“He’ll play four or five games with Tacoma, then four or five with Everett and finish with four or five in Tacoma,” Piniella said. “It’s a schedule that keeps him in this area.”
Piniella said Buhner needs about 50 at-bats, roughly the number a player gets at spring training.
“He’ll DH a day, play in the outfield, DH, play the outfield,” Piniella said. “He’ll play about half the game (early) and then build up.”
Nobody will say when Buhner might rejoin the Mariners, but a logical date would be Sept. 1, when major league teams are allowed to expand their rosters.
“I don’t know that,” Piniella said. “If he goes out Monday, that’s the 13th, and we’re looking at two weeks.”
Buhner, whose 37th birthday is Monday, said earlier this week that he would like to return in August.
“I’m going to try to be as cautious as I can,” he said. “It just depends on how I feel. I know I’m going to have days when it feels pretty decent and days when it doesn’t.”
Buhner injured the foot early in spring training, suffered several setbacks in his recovery and finally underwent surgery on June 12 to release the plantar fascia tissue.
Record whiff: When Mike Cameron swung through a letter-high fastball with the bases loaded in the first inning Friday, he set a Mariners record for strikeouts in consecutive games.
Cameron has fanned at least once in 21 straight games, breaking the record of 20 by Buhner in 1988. Cameron’s streak is the longest since Tony Clark of the Tigers fanned in 22 straight games in 1996.
Alarming: Fire alarms sounded at Safeco Field three times Friday, twice during the game. A faulty sensor in an exhaust fan at a concession stand triggered the alarms, which sounded during batting practice, in the top of the first inning and in the top of the second.
The same thing happened at a game earlier this season.
Correction: Derek Piniella, who is spending the week in Seattle with his father, did not win a national championship while playing football at Virginia Tech. Piniella was a special-teams player on the Virginia Tech team that lost the national championship to Florida State 44-29 in the 2000 Sugar Bowl.
Kirby Arnold
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
