Mariners Blog

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

May 5, 2009 at 11:44 PM

Comments (0) E-mail article Print Share

Mariners reliever Kelley could be gone a month or more

Posted by Geoff Baker

Just heading off to bed here in Kansas City before tomorrow's (Wednesday) appearance on KJR AM 950's Mitch in the Morning show at 8:30 a.m., where I'll do my Talkin' Baseball segment. From what I've been hearing, pitcher Shawn Kelley has a strained oblique, but it's more like a torn one to be honest. Now, get this straight. A strained muscle is, in fact, a tear. There are different degrees of tearing in strains, from microscopic to more severe. And from what I'm hearing, this one could keep Kelley out about a month. Maybe even six weeks. We don't know yet, but he's definitely heading to the DL.

Lefty pitcher Garret Olson was scratched from his scheduled start at Class AAA Tacoma and it makes sense to call him up since Kelley was emerging as this team's best bet against lefthanded hitters. He'd struck out 11 guys while allowing only one walk and that's great in any bullpen. Lefties had an on-base-plus-slugging percentage (OPS) of only .632 off him compared to .791 for righties. So, Olson comes up, it would appear.

E-mail article Print Share

Comments

No comments have been posted to this article.

Read all comments / Share your thoughts

Mariners Blog

Mariners reliever Kelley could be gone a month or more

The Seattle Times Company

Services

News

Marketplace

Subscriber Services

Other editions