Mariners notebook: Wade Miley keeps busy on a rainy afternoon
May 20, 2016, 4:17 PM | Updated: 4:30 pm
CINCINNATI – It rained throughout the afternoon here in Cincinnati and there will be a delay, but it appears the Mariners and Reds will play eventually.
While the tarp has been on the field since 4 p.m. EST, both teams were able to take early batting practice. After that, a lot of sitting around for the Mariners. Turns out idle time can be dangerous for Wade Miley, who took to painting shoes.
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“My cleats, some paint rubbed off and they got red and I didn’t want to be pitching with red cleats so I was going to touch them up with some paint and the next thing you know I’m painting three or four guys’ cleats and now they are in there trying to un-paint them as we speak,” he explained.
Miley was able to round up a couple of cans of teal paint as well as a few small paint brushes and sponges to complete the task. We have seen this before in the Mariners clubhouse – Joe Beimel had a complete cleat-painting kit with a wide array of colors and brushes. He painted a number of his teammates’ shoes, and the results were quite professional. Not quite the same story with Miley, however.
“You got to be real fine with these cleats,” he pointed out. “There are certain spots you need to be real fine with it and I’m terrible at that.”
You also have to have the right equipment. Miley used athletic tape to cover the spots on the shoes he didn’t want painted and that didn’t work out very well for him.
“The paint went right through it,” he said shaking his head. “I didn’t realize how important tape was in painting but it is very important for you future painters. You definitely need blue paint-tape to line your seams and you just go from there.”
Of course practice makes perfect and Miley had only so many of his own cleats to practice on.
“Iannetta, I grabbed his pair and said these look like a good pair to paint and I went to work,” he said with a laugh. “He knew a little bit about it, he wanted me to paint the Nike check but I decided I was going to paint the whole shoe.”
“It’s water-based paint so it comes off… hopefully.”
If it is water-based then we should see a good amount of teal on the field tonight.
Lineup! **
Ketel Marte, SS
Seth Smith, LF
Robinson Cano, 2B
Nelson Cruz, RF
Kyle Seager, 3B
Adam Lind, 1B
Chris Iannetta, C
Leonys Martin, CF
Hisashi Iwakuma, RHP
**This is the original posted lineup and could change. With a very wet field the Mariners may want to keep Cruz out of the outfield. Shawn O’Malley, Norichika Aoki or even Franklin Gutierrez would be options to replace him.
Notes
• With the game in a National League park, pitchers will hit. Hisashi Iwakuma has not had much success in his opportunities to swing the bat, going 0 for 9 with a walk and two sacrifice bunts in his career.
• Earlier today I wrote about the Mariners’ success early in games. Should they struggle early today, they will likely still have a chance to do damage late as the Reds’ bullpen ERA is 6.48, which puts them on pace to put up the worst bullpen ERA in modern history.
• While the Mariners’ 3-4-5 hitters have received much notice for their production in the month of May, 7-8-9 deserves a tip of the cap as well. The Mariners’ bottom of the order has combined for 15 home runs, which ties them for the third most in baseball.
