M's Notebook | Guillen praises M's trainers

For a guy who hasn't missed a game this season, right fielder Jose Guillen sure spends a lot of time with the Mariners' training staff.

So much time in fact, that Guillen is positively gushing about the work done by head trainer Rick Griffin and his staff to get him to where he is right now. Guillen admits that despite some tenacious winter workouts in the Dominican Republic, he still needed to drop 10 pounds this spring and do an assortment of strengthening exercises apart from other players.

"If he hadn't pushed me as hard as he did, I don't think there is any way I would have been ready," said Guillen, limited to 69 games with Washington last season mainly because of an elbow injury that forced him to have a pair of operations. "That's just my opinion, but when I came to spring training, my arm was not that big. It was not that strong. But he really made my arm big. He pushed it to the next level."

Guillen added that the trainers on some of his six other major-league teams wouldn't have pushed a player so hard. There were times, he added, that he'd have to chase after trainers in order to get proper treatment.

Not so in this case.

"He looks like he's a coach or manager, the way I've seen him push some players," Guillen said of Griffin. "He's like 'Come on! You've got to do this, you've got to do that! You're not working hard enough!' I was really surprised, to be honest with you. He must have some power over here."

Griffin is in his 25th season with the club — as the second trainer in its history — and has missed just three games.

Guillen's arm was the primary concern this spring, but his legs have given him the most trouble of late. He's finally over the soreness in his left ankle, but the right one is giving him lingering problems.

"It's not 100 percent just yet," he said. "I was having trouble running the bases before, but the last time out there, it felt better. I'm still trying to get it right."

Guillen has yet to miss a start, though he has been replaced late in games for defensive reasons on four occasions by fourth outfielder Jason Ellison. He nearly had another injury to worry about in Tuesday night's first inning, when he was drilled on the right hand by a Ramon Ortiz pitch.

But Guillen shook it off. He entered the night hitting .185 (now .200) and attributes some of it to difficulties "seeing the ball" amidst the Safeco Field backdrop during day games.

"It's pretty tough," he said. "You can see white stuff in center field, it's not completely black, black."

Vidro getting comfortable

Jose Vidro is finally getting used to his new designated-hitter job after all the fits and starts of the past couple of weeks. Forming a routine between at-bats hasn't been easy for the veteran infielder, who watched as five road games were cancelled by snow and rain in Cleveland and Boston.

The return to Safeco Field has helped that routine somewhat.

"I do some running now before going out to the field," Vidro said. "In the cages there, I get some more swings in than I could down in spring training. Because of the cold, I've been trying to stay warm."

Vidro opened the season 1 for 16, but had a breakout game Sunday, going 3 for 5 with two homers and four runs batted in. He went 2 for 4 on Tuesday.

Notes

• Mariners manager Mike Hargrove wasn't complaining about his team's latest 48-hour break, this one because of a scheduled day off Monday. Hargrove also wasn't worried about losing any momentum after two straight weekend victories over Texas.

"There's a difference between a day off and a day that you're off because of the weather," Hargrove said. "You don't just show up to play the game. You start getting ready the night before, for the next day. And that builds throughout the day, then you get to the ballpark and it continues that way.

"When you've got a scheduled day off, you don't have to do that."

• A leadoff homer to center by Ichiro in Tuesday night's first inning marked the 23rd time in his career he has done that, tying him for 16th all-time in the majors. It's also just the second time in his career Ichiro has hit leadoff homers in consecutive games, the previous ones coming Aug. 15 and 17 of 2004 against the New York Yankees and Kansas City Royals.

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com. Read his daily blog at www.seattletimes.com/Mariners

For the record

Streak: L1

Home: 4-3

Road: 1-1

vs. AL West: 4-2

vs. Anaheim: 0-0

vs. Oakland: 2-1

vs. Texas: 2-1

vs. AL East: 1-1

vs. AL Central: 0-1

vs. NL: 0-0

vs. LHP: 0-0

vs. RHP: 5-4

Day: 3-1

Night: 2-3

One-run: 0-0

Extra innings: 0-0

Home attendance

Tuesday's crowd: 19,015

Season total: 189,319

Biggest crowd: 46,003 (April 2)

Smallest crowd: 19,015 (April 17)

Average (seven dates): 27,046

2006 average (seven dates): 29,336