Mariners notebook: More on the interesting trip to Dallas

ARLINGTON, Texas – In baseball you put things behind you quickly. A turbulent flight is a little different than a rocky outing, however, and the Mariners were still abuzz about their flight from Seattle to Dallas late Sunday night.

“It was one of the more turbulent flights I’ve had,” said Willie Bloomquist, “but definitely, without a doubt, hands down the most interesting landing I have been a part of. We were all I think pretty much white-knuckling there when we landed and bracing for a little bit of a roll but the pilot did a good job to somehow get all the wheels on the ground. It was well done on their part but kind of freaky for us.”

Added Nelson Cruz: “That was very scary. The landing was kind of rough. The wings of the plane were almost touching the ground. It was crazy, but it was a good landing. The pilot was pretty good. I told him good job. We survived, that’s the good part.”

The Mariners were diverted to San Antonio to wait out the storm in Dallas. There was a good amount of turbulence over the majority of Texas, something that Logan Morrison tried to ignore.

“The way I look at it is if I had control of the situation we definitely would crash, so I’m glad I don’t have the control of the situation. There’s nothing I can do about it so I might as well relax,” he said.

That strategy worked right up until the landing.

“I didn’t know we were actually that close to the ground,” Morrison said. “And then we did this move and then that move. I was like, ‘Whoa! That was weird,’ and then not two seconds later we hit the ground and if I knew we were that close I would have been freaked out, but I didn’t because again, I was trying not to care.”

Lloyd McClendon refused to acknowledge the situation.

“I don’t know what all the commotion was about,” he said with a smile during his pregame media session. “I was asleep, I woke up, we landed. What the hell – It was a good flight. Any flight that you can talk about was a good flight.”

Enjoy the journey, Skip. Aaron Goldsmith pointed out that was exactly what McClendon compared the Fernando Rodney experience to last year. So credit the pilot with a save despite the bumps, turns and bounces. Come to think of it, credit him with a good save.

Lineup!

Justin Ruggiano, CF
Seth Smith, DH
Robinson Cano, 2B
Nelson Cruz, RF
Kyle Seager, 3B
Rickie Weeks, LF
Brad Miller, SS
Willie Bloomquist, 1B
Mike Zunino, C

Taijuan Walker, RHP

Despite facing a righty tonight, McClendon has five right-handed hitters in the lineup. He said there were a few reasons for this. He wants to give Morrison and Austin Jackson a mental break, doesn’t believe that an extra day will hurt Dustin Ackley and wants to give his righty bats an opportunity to play three games in a row after not getting much playing time last week in Seattle.

I suspect he also wants to get a better, more extended look at Ruggiano, Weeks and Bloomquist to figure out what he has in them. With almost a month in the books this club has still yet to settle in.

Notes

• Carson Smith needs just one more inning of scoreless ball to take the Mariners’ record for most consecutive scoreless innings to start his career. Mark Lowe holds the record with 17.2 scoreless innings.

• Tom Wilhelmsen played catch today and all looked good. I would expect to see him throw a flat-ground session in the next few days.

• Hisashi Iwakuma, who is on the 15-day disabled list, stayed behind in Seattle to receive treatment. According to McClendon, he is also playing light catch.