Mariners
Notebook: After NL break, Edgar is up again

By Bob Sherwin
Seattle Times staff reporter

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PITTSBURGH — Texas beckons Edgar Martinez.

After a week of mostly sitting on the bench in National League ballparks, the Mariners' longtime designated hitter will get back to what he is familiar with beginning tomorrow night. For at least the next 10 games, he should be back in the regular lineup.

Martinez had four plate appearances in the six-game NL trip, with a pair of walks, a ground out and an RBI double.

"When you don't play, you don't know how you'll do," Martinez said. "You have to get in the game and see how it goes. You have to keep working on your swing."

Last season, after his idle stretch through the National League, Martinez had just three hits in his next 28 at-bats when he returned to American League parks.

"He has a history of hitting well in Texas," Mariners manager Bob Melvin said of Martinez, who has a .307 career average against the Rangers and a .287 average in Arlington. "I think we've done a decent job of keeping him reasonably sharp. He had the walk the other night. He had the big hit.

"We kept him sharp enough so that when he's back in the middle of the lineup he's ready to go."

The Mariners have one more short stretch at NL ballparks, a three-game series in St. Louis, July 2-4.

Ichiro experiment

With Martinez back, don't expect the lineup to revert back to Ichiro leading off again.
 
Melvin said that will come at some point but, he added, "As long as we're winning, I don't know why you'd change it up."

PNC draws raves

In just about everyone's opinion, the people who put together Pittsburgh's PNC Park did it right. The Mariners love the look, the atmosphere and the playing aspects, except for one negative. When the sun is out early in night games, it's difficult for the hitter to see the pitch.

"The first couple at-bats, you have some light back there, and the pitcher is in a little bit of shadow," catcher Pat Borders said. "That makes it tough to pick up any kind of spin. It's not easy to catch either. You have to really concentrate.

"But it's a nice atmosphere. It gets abnormally loud when the fans get into it."

Said Melvin, who had seen the PNC when he was with the Arizona Diamondbacks, "It's one of my favorite ballparks. I like it a lot. It has great sight lines. The city is great out there. I think they've taken things from a lot of ballparks and made it a great atmosphere here."

From a fan's perspective, the setting is stunning. PNC Park sits up against the Allegheny River.

Hasegawa rooting

Shigetoshi Hasegawa had a rooting interest in the U.S. Open because of Shigeki Maruyama, a Japanese countryman and friend.

Maruyama's 74 Saturday essentially took him out of contention.

"That was not him. He was not smiling at all," Hasegawa said. "He must have been too nervous. Maybe too much media was there because Japanese never have won a major tournament."

Hasegawa loves golf and once dreamed of playing on one of the U.S. tours.

"I used to think that, if I quit baseball, I wanted to be a golfer. But it's too late now, I'm too old," the 35-year-old said.

Notes

• Yankees pro scout Jim Benedict was at PNC Park yesterday to watch Mariners starter Freddy Garcia. He also was in Milwaukee on Tuesday to watch Garcia's start against the Brewers.

• Ichiro had his first run batted in in seven games and 44 at-bats as the No. 3 hitter. He is batting .386 (17 of 44) in that spot in his MLB career.

• Rich Aurilia, who had been struggling along with several other veterans, was 1 for 3 yesterday and is 4 for 14 on the trip. "Hopefully, I found the slot in my stance where I'm comfortable," he said. "When I hit the ball hard like I did today, things seem to be going in the right direction."

• Melvin was a bit starstruck Saturday night when one of his boyhood idols, golfer Arnold Palmer, attended the game. "He was sitting right over there in Row 4. Now there's a celebrity ... ," he said. "He's the king."