Seattle Aims at Postseason, Not Records

Ichiro Suzuki and his Seattle Mariners continue to blaze away, on pace to rewrite the record book, but Manager Lou Piniella will be doing some editing soon.

“My posture is, we’re not chasing records,” Piniella said in Oakland this week. “We’re trying to put together a team that’s going to stay healthy and strong the entire season. We’ve pushed it pretty good to get where we are. We have to give people a breather or it’s going to show late in the season.”

The race in the West is basically over.

The Mariners, who are on pace for a major league-record 120 wins, have the luxury of preparing for October in mid-summer.

While General Manager Pat Gillick searches for one more hitter who might make a difference in the playoffs, Piniella will begin giving his players regular rest, providing they don’t talk him out of it.

“The problem is, when I come to the park I’m going to quit asking a few of these guys [how they feel] because every time I ask them, they’re ready to play,” Piniella said.

“We’ve built ourselves a comfortable position. We’re not trying to coast, but we have to be smart.”

Piniella is particularly concerned about Suzuki, who is on pace for a record 260 hits, and the number of appearances his bullpen has made.

He said his experience with the 1990 Cincinnati Reds, who went wire to wire in the National League West and swept Oakland in the World Series, taught him the value of a fresh bullpen, a Mariner strength. Suzuki, meantime, has appeared in 72 of Seattle’s 73 games, starting all but three.

“I’m concerned,” Piniella said. “The fact is, this young man has never played more than 135 games [in Japan] and this is a 162-game season. We’re also asking him to run, whereas in Japan, he didn’t run.”

Suzuki has 25 stolen bases, four more than he had with the Orix Blue Wave last season. His pace projects to a career-high 55.

“It’s tough [to back off],” Piniella said, “but do you want a team for June or for September and October? That’s what we have to keep in mind.”

With their trade for Montreal Expo closer Ugueth Urbina having collapsed, the New York Yankees are now eyeing Detroit Tiger reliever Todd Jones and former Dodger Pedro Astacio, a major disappointment in the Colorado Rockies rotation this year.

Astacio, 17-11 in 1999 and 12-9 last year, is 5-8 this season, 2-7 with an 7.58 earned-run average in his last 12 starts.

Colorado pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, the former Angel manager and pitching coach, shoulders much of the blame, saying he has been unable to find answers.

“It’s a concern any time someone with that kind of ability is not producing,” Lachemann said. “It’s not a lack of effort or stuff. Maybe they should have saved some of that money they spent on pitchers during the winter and spent it on a decent pitching coach. When a guy with that kind of ability and desire struggles, you have to look in a mirror sometimes--and I don’t mean him.”

Despite a staggering injury toll, the Chicago White Sox continue to inch into the Central Division race they won in a surprise last year. They have won 21 of their last 28 games, prompting General Manager Ken Williams to take a chance on Jose Canseco as the full-time designated hitter, where there has been a void since Frank Thomas was lost for the season.

“I just felt we were at a point where we could start to smell the wild card, smell the division, if we allow ourselves to dream for such things,” Williams said. “We obviously have been playing good baseball, but over the course of the last three to four weeks we’ve also averaged only about four runs per game, and if you take Magglio Ordonez out of the equation, it’s probably around three.”

The White Sox can still be a factor if the offense picks up some of the load for an injury-riddled pitching staff. Young starters Mark Buehrle, Kip Wells and Jon Garland have started to live up to their billing, but the Sox are trying to replace six pitchers who are out for the season--Jim Parque, Cal Eldred, Bill Simas, Antonio Osuna, Lorenzo Barcelo and Kelly Wunsch. Wunsch led the league with 83 appearances last year, which may explain why he was found to have a torn rotator cuff this week and will require surgery.