Is latest return of Mike Zunino to the Mariners good news or bad news?

Mike Zunino’s 2017 season didn’t get off to a good start. The 26-year-old catcher managed all of 12 hits in his first 25 games with the Mariners, resulting in a .167 batting average and another demotion to Triple-A Tacoma.

Zunino was back in a Mariners uniform on Tuesday, even hitting his first MLB home run of the year – though he struck out in each of his other two at-bats. While Zunino performed well in a dozen games with the Rainiers before being called back up, hitting .293 with five home runs and 11 RBIs, 710 ESPN Seattle’s Mike Salk wasn’t so sure his return was the best of news.

Jerry Dipoto on Mike Zunino: ‘Can’t allow this to steamroll’

That’s because the Mariners didn’t get much production from the catching tandem of Carlos Ruiz and Tuffy Gosewisch in his absence, making Salk wonder if Seattle’s hand was forced before Zunino got the right amount of work in to adjust his swing in the minors.

“They just weren’t adequately prepared to survive the amount of time he actually needed to spend in Triple-A, and to go down there for 12 games or so, that was not the plan,” Salk said on “Brock and Salk” Tuesday. “The plan was to get him to get right and to do everything that he needed to do, and my assumption and my belief based on talking to people in the organization is that they thought that would take more than just the two weeks that he was down – maybe as along as a month to get him right. Maybe that’s off and maybe they’re absolutely ready, but I still believe that a part of the reason that they had to bring him back was Tuffy was so bad, with no ability to catch, no ability to hit, no ability to call games. He was not up to the task of being even a part-time MLB catcher.”

Salk’s co-host, Brock Huard, took a more optimistic look at things. He said after listening to what Mariners manager Scott Servais has said about Zunino, he believes the team accomplished what it wanted with his short stint in Triple-A.

“When they sent him down, I think this was the expectation. Get away, clear your head, don’t be around the game for a weekend, go hit some bombs, and then we’re gonna need you back,” Huard said. “If I’m Mike Zunino, I’m walking in here, ‘Cleared my head, I know I can hit.'”

And even if Zunino doesn’t end up performing after this latest return to the big leagues, Huard thinks that with 375 MLB games under his belt at this point, it’s time for the Mariners’ talented catcher to play without a net.

“Isn’t there just some point, though, where it’s sink or swim? You’re not talking a high school catcher. You’re talking about a renowned player, you’re taking about a top-five pick, and this isn’t Year 1 or Year 2,” he said. “Ultimately don’t you have to figure out whether this guy has it or not? And you’re not going to do it at the Triple-A level.”

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