Mariners demote struggling catcher Mike Zunino, call up John Hicks

CHICAGO – Jack Zduriencik’s last move as general manager of the Mariners was to send down his struggling catcher. After Thursday night’s loss to the White Sox, Mike Zunino was told he was being optioned to Triple-A Tacoma.

“It’s just kind of a breather, a break, get away from it all,” Zduriencik said. “He was very receptive of it, he understood it. He apologized that he didn’t help the club the way he wished he could have, but he will.”

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While Zunino has excelled behind the plate, at the plate has been a different story. After hitting .199 in 2014, he has hit .174 to date this season. While he showed improvement after the All-Star break, in recent weeks he began to slide again, hitting just .130 in August.

Zduriencik admitted that the move came later than he had hoped.

“We would have liked to do it some time ago but just didn’t feel the guys in Triple-A were quite ready,” he said.

John Hicks has been called up to take Zunino’s place. He would have been a September call-up but Zduriencik didn’t want to wait that long. He wanted Zunino to have time to decompress and get a good number of at-bats before the Triple-A season ended. At that point, it was Zduriencik’s plan to bring him back.

“He’ll grow from this,” Zduriencik said. “He’s a great kid, a great worker, a wonderful young man and he’ll be a really good player going forward. This is one of those steps when you have options and when you struggle, this is what he needed, I think.”

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