Mariners notebook: Welington Castillo to start Thursday

BALTIMORE – Welington Castillo was getting a crash course on the Mariners Wednesday afternoon in the visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards. Before he even had a chance to put on his new jersey, there was a new manager to meet, coaches to learn the signs from and teammates to say hello to. One teammate he needed to find quickly was J.A. Happ.

“He’s catching him tomorrow,” manager Lloyd McClendon said.

It is right into the fire for the new guy. That is fine for Castillo, who is excited to get going.

“I’m going to talk to him to be on the same page, watch video. I want to see what he likes to do and what the other guys see from him and what they know,” Castillo said. “We will go from there, but he knows what he is doing, he’s a veteran guy. I think he is going to make my game-calling easy and I hope we are going to win some games.”

Castillo is needed with the day game after the night game, and fortunately for him, he gets probably the most catchable pitcher on the Mariners’ staff. There is plenty to be learned but Castillo will take it one day and one pitcher at a time.

“That’s the hard part of this,” he said. “I know everybody is new to me but I will talk to them during the game, find out what they got, what they like. I want to take the doubt when the game comes. The game, you go out and compete, that’s all that matters. I want them to feel comfortable with me and I feel comfortable with them.”

Lineup!

Rickie Weeks, DH
Willie Bloomquist, LF
Robinson Cano, 2B
Nelson Cruz, RF
Kyle Seager, 3B
Justin Ruggiano, CF
Logan Morrison, 1B
Mike Zunino, C
Chris Taylor, SS

Roenis Elias, LHP

Jackson needs more time

It does not seem likely that we will see Austin Jackson rejoin the team before next week.

Jackson played nine innings in the field with Triple-A Tacoma on Tuesday and experienced some ankle swelling after. He was scheduled to travel to Iowa with the Rainiers today and the hope is he can play nine innings in center field on Thursday. With the team playing the next two series on artificial turf in Toronto and Tampa Bay, it is important that Jackson’s ankle is 100 percent before he returns.

“If he says, ‘Well, I’m 85 or 90 percent’ and then you take him to Toronto on the soft turf, that doesn’t make a lot of sense,” McClendon said. “I’m not excited about playing six straight games on turf, even with healthy players. From what I have been told, Toronto is very soft, very slow and very hard on the legs so you can imagine it can’t be too good on the ankle.”

Notes

• The Mariners made a few roster moves today. Castillo was activated to the 25-man roster, catcher Jesus Sucre was optioned to Tacoma and reliever Edgar Olmos was reinstated from the disabled list and optioned to Tacoma as well. The team also signed reliever Kevin Gregg to a minor-league contract. He will report to Tacoma on Thursday.