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 22, 2009 at 5:19 PM

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Washburn moved back to Tuesday; no Griffey

Posted by Bob Condotta

A couple of quick news notes from, Safeco Field from fill-in beat guy for a night, Bob Condotta.

M's manager Don Wakamatsu said Jarrod Washburn will not start tomorrow as planned but instead will be pushed back to Tuesday at Oakland due to some tightness above his left knee, the leg he pushes off to make his pitches.

Garrett Olson will get the start, instead.

Wakamatsu said the injury bothered Washburn a little bit in his last start Monday against the Angels in which he got the loss. He said there is no concern of a major injury but that "it's a little bit safer'' to hold him out for a few days and eliminate any chance of making it worse.

Also, the lineup is out and it does not feature Ken Griffey Jr., a matchup fans likely wanted to see going up against Randy Johnson.

Griffey said only "whatever skip wants to do. I can't control that. As long as we win, that's fine.''

Asked if he wanted to face Johnson, Griffey said "nah'' but also made an eye motion as if to indicate he probably did.

Wakamatsu said the decision not to play Griffey was "more in fairness to Mike Sweeney,'' who as a right-hander creates a better matchup against Johnson. Wakamatsu said Griffey will play the next two games, including going against Barry Zito on Sunday.

"It was a tough decision not to play him but I have to worry about the whole team,'' Wakamatsu said.

So Seattle's lineup reads this way tonight:

Ichiro, RF
Adrian Beltre, 3B
Mike Sweeney, DH
Wladimir Balentien, LF
Russell Branyan, 1B
Kenji Johjima, C
Jose Lopez, 2B
Yuniesky Betancourt, SS
Franklin Gutierrez, CF

For the Giants it is:
Aaron Rowand, CF
Edgar Renteria, SS
Pablo Sandoval, 3B
Bengie Molina, C
Randy Winn, RF
Jesus Guzman, DH
Rich Aurilia, 1B
Fred Lewis, LF
Emmanuel Burris, 2B

There was lots of talk before-hand about Johnson and I'll pass along some of that later.

ALSO --- Ryan Rowland-Smith is going to start tomorrow in Tacoma on his road back to returning to the Mariners.

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Washburn moved back to Tuesday; no Griffey

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