Valuable lessons learned

PEORIA, Ariz. – Seattle manager Mike Hargrove told Jose Lopez at the end of last season he needed to get better to keep his job.

The Mariners’ promising yet inconsistent, 22-year-old second baseman needed to get better with his hitting. Better getting to ground balls. Even better at running.

“He has a tendency to take little Fred Flintstone steps – you know, when he starts his car?” Hargrove said on Tuesday.

Lopez got the message: Yabba. Dabba. Do something!

Instead of going home to Anzoategui, Venezuela, immediately after the season, Lopez humbly reported to the team’s instructional league at its facility here. He was back where he started his rapid rise in 2001, through the minor leagues to Seattle three years later. Back among raw, 18- and 19-year-olds who could only dream of Hargrove giving them anything – even a comparison with Fred Flintstone.

Lopez worked with Mariners coach and former major league infielder Carlos Garcia, a fellow Venezuelan. Garcia then followed him back home, where Lopez played for Lara of the Venezuelan winter league for the fourth consecutive off-season.

Lopez arrived back in Peoria last month, arriving early among Mariners pitchers and catchers.

Now he is becoming the bedrock second basemen Seattle has needed since Bret Boone’s exit out of town and eventually baseball last July.

“I’m working hard,” Lopez said Tuesday, on his way out to yet more practice under Garcia’s watch.

“I’m just practicing hard. I’m just playing hard and finishing spring training. Then, it’s the manager’s decision.”

That decision is becoming clearer midway through spring training.

The Mariners were so unsure of whether Lopez would respond to Hargrove’s warning, they invited 36-year-old Fernando Vina to camp. They told Vina he would have an opportunity to win Lopez’s job – even though he hadn’t played in over 20 months because of hamstring and knee injuries.

“The opportunity to be the everyday second baseman – that’s why I’m here,” Vina said.

But the former All-Star with Milwaukee in 1998 has yet to play in a spring game because of a lingering right hip flexor. Both he and Hargrove expect Vina to play his first game on Friday.

Meanwhile, Lopez has done what the manager asked five months ago.

Hargrove said Lopez is reacting more quickly to ground balls, and “his range is definitely better.”

Hargrove doesn’t care that Lopez was batting .238 (5 for 21) in seven games entering Tuesday. He likes Lopez’s better overall approach at the plate.

“His at-bats are light years better,” Hargrove said.

“Yes, he’s a better player.”

The Mariners are trying to get Lopez to reduce his strikeouts without robbing his aggressiveness. He has 56 whiffs and 14 walks as part of his .239 career batting average in 111 major league games.

In Venezuela over the winter, Lopez improved. He struck out 22 times and had 16 walks in 130 at-bats. He batted .285 with six doubles, one home run, 16 RBIs.

Lopez has been getting a tutorial over the last month from new Seattle hitting coach Jeff Pentland, who was the Chicago Cubs hitting mentor in 1998 when Cub Sammy Sosa and St. Louis’ Mark McGwire both broke Roger Maris’ hallowed home run record.

Pentland said he wants Lopez to keep the ball out of the air, to focus less on pulling pitches.

“I don’t even want him thinking about home runs,” Pentland said.

He’s not.

“I’m much better hitting than I was last year,” Lopez said. “I’m hitting more to the opposite field, and with more line drives.

“And I’m better defensively. I have a better work ethic.”

Garcia attempted to quicken Lopez’s feet over the winter by having him run laterally, constantly stopping and starting.

The idea was for Lopez to close the gap from where he is positioned before each pitch and first baseman Richie Sexson to his left.

That, and for Lopez to return to being the player they shocked when they called him out of Triple-A Tacoma on July 30, 2004. The dejected 20-year old was pumping gas on his way home from the ballpark when he got the dream phone call – and then started the next 18 Mariners games at shortstop.

But he lost the first half of last season to a broken hamate bone is his left hand. After a series of promotions and demotions to Triple A, he didn’t stay in Seattle until after Aug. 30. He batted .261 over the season’s last month, and .247 in 54 Mariners games overall.

“He’s still a young kid,” Hargrove said. “We just need to see him not get frustrated by everything.”