Mariners Notebook | Clement, Balentien could be up sooner than later

Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi says service-time issues will not prevent the team from calling up minor-league sluggers Jeff Clement or Wladimir Balentien if they can help the club.

Bavasi made the comments on Tuesday after manager John McLaren suggested both players would be up "sooner than later" and that a slew of Mariners batting around or below .200 had better shape up. McLaren also said that service-time issues had never come up during discussions he's had with the front office about Clement or Balentien.

"We've given everybody a fair opportunity," McLaren said. "We've been patient, we've given everybody the benefit of the doubt. So, with that said, we're ready to move forward one way or the other."

News later in the evening that Clement and Balentien had been held out of the Class AAA Tacoma lineup Tuesday did little to quell rumors that changes are imminent. Clement is hitting .397 with five homers, 20 runs batted in and a 1.227 on-base-plus-slugging percentage for Tacoma. Balentien — who hit three homers Monday — is batting .254 with six homers, 20 RBI and an OPS of .948.

The top OPS among the Mariners, as of Tuesday morning, was Adrian Beltre at .892. The team's is a paltry .709.

"They'll both be here sooner than later," McLaren said of Clement and Balentien. "We're well aware of them. They're very highly thought of."

Seattle entered the day with right fielder Brad Wilkerson batting .189, designated hitter Jose Vidro hitting .195, catcher Kenji Johjima at .197 and first baseman Richie Sexson at .207. McLaren said the delay in calling up Clement and Balentien has as much to do with giving the struggling hitters one final opportunity as it does to making sure the minor-leaguers — especially Balentien, who banged up a knee last week — are ready.

Vidro notched a pair of doubles in Tuesday's game, driving in a run each time. Wilkerson also came up with his first three-hit game of the year, all of them singles.

But Sexson went 1 for 5, stranding seven runners before notching a double with none on in the ninth. Johjima grounded into a pair of double plays.

Heading into Tuesday's ninth inning, Seattle seemed set to score no more than four runs for the eighth time in its last 10 games. Only one of the team's first two runs on Tuesday was earned before Beltre hit a three-run homer in the ninth.

The fact that the struggling hitters are all batting consecutively in Seattle's lineup has caused even more damage to the offense.

"We've got several guys around the .200 mark and they've got to pick it up in a hurry," McLaren said.

Regardless of when Clement and Balentien are called up, this supposedly won't be the same as when Adam Jones was promoted from Tacoma last August. At the time, the Mariners struggled to find him playing time, saying that the improved second-half play of Vidro and Raul Ibanez left few openings in the middle of a playoff hunt.

"We kind of just mixed him in whenever we could," McLaren said of Jones. "It's a little different now. We have guys that are struggling. If we bring them [Clement and Balentien] up, we're going to play them."

Each youngster has 27 days of accumulated service time and would be on pace to garner a full year's worth of time this season if promoted before May 7 (172 days on a roster equals a year of service time). That could result in both players becoming eligible for free-agency a year ahead of time.

Promoting them before mid-June would also potentially make both players eligible for arbitration a year early under "Super Two" provisions of the collective-bargaining agreement. But Bavasi insisted that a money issue like that, when a team can fill a need by promoting a player, "has no impact on a decision."

Notes

• Wilkerson hoped that his three-hit night against the Indians was the start of something better. Wilkerson notched singles in the second, fourth and fifth innings and also drew a base-on-balls in the eighth.

But he said it wasn't the result of any fear factor, borne out of a pregame warning from manager McLaren that his hitters need to step up their games or be replaced.

"If you go out there thinking like that, it's not going to help," said Wilkerson, who lifted his batting average from .189 to .232 with the hits. "It was something to get started with. Something to build on."

Wilkerson had just 10 hits all season before Tuesday's game. The three hits are his most since notching four against the Mariners Aug. 23 while playing for the Texas Rangers.

• Miguel Cairo made the most of a pinch-running opportunity he was given after a Sexson double with one out in the ninth. Cairo promptly stole third base — his first theft of the season — and scored on a Yuniesky Betancourt single to left.

• Sexson entered the day with the unusual distinction of being the only American Leaguer among the bottom five players in home batting average and the top 50 in the same statistic on the road. Sexson has a .160 average at home, fifth worst in the league, but his .270 road average heading into the day had him 47th best in the AL.

Those road numbers began plummeting in a hurry when Sexson went hitless in his first four at-bats on Tuesday, stranding seven runners his first three times up. But Sexson notched a double his final turn at the plate.

• Jose Lopez has a nine-game hitting streak after going 2 for 6 with a double. Lopez is batting .350 over that stretch.

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com.

Read his daily blog at www.seattletimes.com/Mariners

For the record

Streak: W1

Home: 7-7

Road: 6-7

vs. AL West: 8-6

vs. L.A.: 3-3

vs. Oakland: 3-2

vs. Texas: 2-1

vs. AL East: 3-7

vs. AL Central: 2-1

vs. NL: 0-0

vs. LHP: 2-5

vs. RHP: 11-9

Day: 3-5

Night: 10-9

One-run: 1-7

Extra innings: 0-0