BRENT STECKER

Jerry Dipoto impressed by Nathan Karns’ first relief outing for Mariners

Jul 1, 2016, 12:27 PM

Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto joined “Danny, Dave and Moore” Thursday, as he does on a weekly basis. You can listen to a podcast of “The Jerry Dipoto Show” here. Below are some highlights from the interview:

• Nathan Karns was moved to the bullpen earlier this week and made his first relief appearance for the Mariners on Wednesday, striking out six in a pair of scoreless innings. Dipoto explained the motivation between the move and shared his excitement after Karns’ initial bullpen outing on Wednesday: “His physical stuff had a chance to really impact our bullpen, and with as well as James Paxton has thrown, and as good a job in one outing as Wade LeBlanc gave us on Friday against the Cardinals, and with Felix Hernandez (returning from injury) on the horizon, we thought the best thing for us was … to see how he transitioned to the bullpen and see how the stuff played coming out of the pen. His mentality, his approach, his style, his stuff really profiles in a bullpen. … If (Wednesday) night was any indication of what he can do in a bullpen, then you can sign me up. That looked like a dominant reliever coming out of a bullpen.”

• The Mariners’ health issues in the rotation have been widespread in June, as Dipoto said the team had accrued 175 disabled list days in the month from starting pitchers alone. He said the injuries had a domino effect as the starters have struggled to get deep in games, which in turn taxed the bullpen. He even blamed that for an injury to reliever Nick Vincent, who was placed on the DL Wednesday with a mid-back strain: “Unfortunately the lack of innings that we’ve received from the starting rotation has really put the bullpen in a position where, first we were leaking oil and then we started hemorrhaging. It’s time for us to get it on track. Most recently we lost Nick Vincent, which I think was a product of overwork. Through no fault of his own, he was just thrown out there a lot and asked to do things that were probably not in his skill set. Not fair to him, but now it’s on us to figure out how to bail this group out.”

• Another part of the domino effect was veteran outfielder Nori Aoki being sent to Triple-A late last week when the Mariners needed to add an extra bullpen arm and Aoki was the only expendable position player with minor-league options left. Aoki has struggled this year with Seattle, however, so there are still expectations for him with Tacoma. “Just to get everyday at-bats, hopefully to get himself back in a good place,” Dipoto said of what he wants Aoki’s trip to the minors to accomplish. “Nori had not played well, particularly against left-handed pitching. When we sent him off to Tacoma, we told him this is likely a short-term thing while we work through allowing our pitching staff to reset. This was also an opportunity for him to go down and focus especially versus left-hand pitchers and get back to doing the things that he’s done so consistently throughout his career. I’ll give Nori a ton of credit, he was incredibly professional about it. The guy has had a really steady major-league career and was an international superstar in Japan and just has not had a productive first half, or one that looks like Nori Aoki. We just want him to get back to being who he is.”

• Dipoto spoke at length about the decision to promote catcher Mike Zunino from Triple-A. You can read his thoughts about the situation in this story.

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Jerry Dipoto impressed by Nathan Karns’ first relief outing for Mariners