Jerry Dipoto doesn’t expect Mariners to be banged up for long
Jun 3, 2016, 1:50 PM
The Mariners’ disabled list has been plenty active in recent weeks, with Felix Hernandez, Leonys Martin and Ketel Marte all going down with mild injuries. The silver lining for Seattle is each of those players are expected to recover quickly, general manager Jerry Dipoto said Thursday on 710 ESPN Seattle’s “Danny, Dave and Moore.”
“For us, next week will be a huge week because we anticipate getting two or three of these players back and then getting back to full strength,” Dipoto said. “In the short-term, we are without our ace, we’re without our starting shortstop and without our center fielder. That’s a lot of critical pieces to be without. But this is what good teams do, they step up at these times.”
The Mariners certainly did that on Thursday night with their improbable comeback from down 10 runs to beat the San Diego Padres 16-13.
The first of the returns will be shortstop Marte, who is fully healed from a sprained left thumb and has been playing games with Triple-A Tacoma as part of a rehab assignment. He is set to come off the DL on Monday.
Martin, who has a strained left hamstring, could also rejoin the team as soon as the required 15 days have passed.
“Little less certain but pretty sure that Leonys Martin will be back middle of next week,” Dipoto said.
Hernandez missed his scheduled start Wednesday after being placed on the DL with a right calf strain, but with that move retroactive to May 28, the Mariners are hopeful he could only miss a couple turns in the rotation.
“Fingers crossed, hopefully only a start or two (more missed) with Felix,” said Dipoto.
The Mariners also have four relievers – Tony Zych (shoulder), Evan Scribner (lat), Ryan Cook (lat) and Charlie Furbush (shoulder) – on the DL, none of which are set to return any time in the immediate future. Dipoto described Zych, Scribner and Cook as “day to day” in their rehab programs, noting that each are still experiencing occasional steps back in their recoveries.
