Piniella Pitches Some Analogies Following Rainout, Lou Turns To Golf To Get Point Across

One of the most entertaining teams in baseball, the Mariners were rained out again Saturday - bad news for the Fox network, good news for Seattle.

In seven games televised this season by Fox, the Mariners are 1-6.

“It’s no mystery why ESPN and Fox like to televise our games,” Seattle manager Lou Piniella said. “You go to the bathroom, you miss five runs scoring - one way or the other. We score ‘em and we give ‘em up.”

They got the chance to do neither Saturday, when their game with the Indians was called because of rain for the second consecutive day. Friday night, the two teams played three innings, waited through a 2-hour, 11-minute delay and then saw the contest rescheduled to a day-night doubleheader today.

And the latest rainout? It won’t be rescheduled at all unless it has a direct bearing on the outcome of a division or wild-card winner - and if it does, it will be played the day after the regular season ends.

The last two days, which included more than 5-1/2 hours of rain delays, should prepare the Mariners for the marathon today at Jacobs Field. The team will be at the ballpark by 7 a.m. (PST), a full 10 hours before the first pitch will be thrown in the 5 p.m. (PST) nightcap.

During that lengthy rain delay Saturday, Piniella talked about his team and eventually the subject got back to pitching.

“People love home runs, they love to see you score runs,” he said. “If you had 10,000 people here to watch a golf tournament and they scheduled a long-driving contest and a putting contest, 8,000 of those people would go watch the long drivers.

“But on the final day of the tournament, most of those long drivers didn’t make the cut - and the guys who are contending are the ones who can putt. In baseball, the teams with pitching win consistently. Guys who hit the ball a long way are always fighting to make the cut.

“That’s where this team is - we’re fighting to make the cut.”

Once he got rolling, Piniella kept the topic steady.

“We’ve used 15 starting pitchers this season. That’s inexplicable. If everything goes wrong, you figure you might need 10 starters, because that’s turning over a five-man rotation twice,” he said.

“Nobody in baseball can find 15 starting pitchers in a year. Most teams can’t find five - we’ve tried 15! We’ve got $13 million in payroll that can’t pitch: Randy Johnson, Chris Bosio and Greg Hibbard. That’s not their fault, but you can’t replace their arms and you can’t use the money somewhere else that you’re paying them.

“You look at teams that get hot, like Boston the last month. Their staff earned-run average is 4.37. Ours is 5.40. What gives a team a winning streak? Good starting pitching, period. You can’t just outscore the other guys for a week, 10 days - especially when you’re giving up six, seven, nine runs a game.”

Today, Piniella will start Terry Mulholland in the first game, Sterling Hitchcock in the second.