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.

October 30, 2009 at 5:06 PM

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Michael Saunders suffers slight ankle sprain in Venezuela

Posted by Geoff Baker

One of you wrote in to me earlier asking why Mariners left fielder Michael Saunders was replaced by a pinch-runner in his winter ball game in Venezuela yesterday. Well, it turns out he'd suffered a slight ankle sprain a few days back and had tried to play on it yesterday.

Mariners minor league operations director Pedro Grifol told me that Saunders had been doing some exercises on the ankle and felt well enough to play. Guess he jumped back in there a bit too soon.

He'd been swinging a hot bat down there, so I'm sure he was anxious to get back in ASAP.

I spoke to Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu earlier today and it turns out that new third base coach Mike Brumley has literally been stalking him for years. I mean, these guys played against each other in the Pacific Coast League, then worked together with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Anaheim Angels and Texas Rangers.

These aren't a pair of 70-year-olds with four decades of experience. Neither has been in coaching that long and yet, they seem to jump from organization to organization at roughly the same time.

Interesting.

No wonder Wakamatsu told me Brumley is a guy whose thinking and approach to looking at baseball mirrors much of his own.

"I respect his intelligence and his understanding of the game, that's first and foremost,'' Wakamatsu said.

Mariners Blog

Michael Saunders suffers slight ankle sprain in Venezuela

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