Mariners vs Texas: First look at Bedard plus a wind update

Greetings from sunny but windy Arlington, where the Mariners will take on the Rangers later tonight. A little more on the conditions below, but first the lineup:

Ichiro 9

Figgins 5

Bradley 7

Cust DH

Smoak 3

Olivo 2

Langerhans 8

Ryan 6

Wilson 5

It would appear we have a regular lineup.

Starting of course will be Erik Bedard, completing his comeback from his latest surgery. Bedard looked like all of the healthy pitchers this spring with the only difference being he pitched one inning less than the others the first three outings.

I think we could see a bit of a different Bedard tonight as from what I saw this spring it appeared that he was throwing his cutter a lot more than in the past. He didn’t want to acknowledge this but a few others noticed it too. All of his pitches looked sharp this spring but the cutter especially could be of help to him in that it sets up his curve nicely. We will see what happens tonight.

Finally a little bit of a weather update. It is very windy out there right now and I am told that the many of the eleven homeruns hit by the Rangers over the weekend were wind assisted. This could change tonight. Although it is windy one of the Rangers broadcasters told me that the last three days they had a south wind which aids balls from left center over to right while today there is a north wind. The north wind isn’t going to carry as many balls out but if a hitter is able to get a ball up, way up, it will be aided particularly again to right. This could all change by game time but this is what I am told we have now.