MINOR LEAGUE NOTES / MARTIN BECK : Newfield: He’s as Hot as Weather in Arizona

Marc Newfield knew he was in for a change. If nothing else, playing minor league baseball in Arizona was going to be a lot hotter than playing high school baseball in Huntington Beach.

But when Newfield, the Marina High School player who was the Seattle Mariners’ first-round draft pick in June, arrived in Tempe, he found the temperature hotter than any minor league fastball.

“I noticed it the first day I got off the plane,” Newfield said. “The heat was just killing me. I couldn’t believe it. They said it was going to be hot, but I didn’t think it would be that hot. The first day I got here it was 116.”

Starting times for Arizona League games are 10 a.m. Instruction in the rookie league, which is mostly made up of players just out of high school, often starts at 7 a.m. During the recent heat wave, when temperatures rose above 120 degrees, game times were moved to 9 a.m.

Anything to combat the heat.

“It doesn’t feel like we are beating the heat to me,” Newfield said. “It seems hot to me the whole day, even the night. I can’t tell the difference.”

If the oppressive weather is bothering Newfield, it doesn’t show in his statistics. In 19 games, Newfield, the third Orange County player to be drafted in the first round of the baseball draft, is batting .329. He has three home runs and 17 runs batted in. Newfield, who batted .481 in helping Marina to the Southern Section 5-A championship in June, said he isn’t in any hurry to get out of Arizona. But Ken Compton, the Mariners’ scout who signed him, said Newfield would probably be relocated to the Bellingham (Wash.) team, the Mariners’ rookie league affiliate in the Northwest League.

“I wouldn’t mind if I didn’t leave here,” said Newfield, 17. “It’s no big deal to me. I’ve got a lot of time.”

Newfield, who said he has adjusted to hitting with a wooden bat instead of aluminum, added that there didn’t appear to be much difference between Arizona League pitching and that in the Sunset League.

“It’s not much different than the high school pitching, except they have better junk pitches,” he said. “That’s the only thing that has been throwing me off.”

Compton, who lives in Cypress and is the Mariners’ Southern California scout, said Newfield was sent to Arizona in hopes that his first experience as a professional would be positive. The longest road trip in the centrally located league is about 40 minutes by bus, so the players can sleep in their own beds rather than in unfamiliar hotel rooms.

Newfield has been playing first base, his high school position, as well as some outfield, a position he may be converted to by the Mariners. Compton said instructors have helped Newfield eliminate a minor problem with his throwing mechanics.

“He seems to have his head squarely on his shoulders,” Compton said. “He’s very mature for a 17-year-old.”

Big Return: In his first major league at-bat in weeks, former UC Irvine outfielder Brady Anderson tripled for the Baltimore Orioles Friday. Anderson, who batted .382 for the Orioles’ double-A team in Hagerstown, Md., while rehabilitating a sprained ankle, was activated before the game and his pinch-hit triple in the seventh drove in a run to tie the score at 2-2. The Orioles went on to beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2, in 10 innings.

Sunday, Anderson started in center field and went two for five with another triple in the leadoff spot as the Orioles defeated the White Sox, 9-3.