Seattle Mariners Eying Wednesday For Cliff Lee’s First Bullpen Session
February 18th, 2010 – By John Ritter
Cliff Lee arrived at the Seattle Mariners spring camp bandaged and hobbling, but the team hopes he will be able to throw within a week.
Coaches have set a Feb. 24 target date for the lefty to get in his first bullpen work, although it is not expected to be extensive. The hope is he will be relatively pain free after minor foot surgery to recover a loose bone spur.
“Cliff Lee will play catch, but other than that we’re going to try to keep him off his feet for a couple days,” manager Don Wakamatsu told the Associated Press.
The surgery was conducted in January, scraping loose a bone fragment that had been floating around, and was never expected to be all that serious. It could have actually been put off, but executives prefer he get it done with instead of being bothered during the year.
“It’s minor in terms of Cliff. I think he’s feeling really good about himself,” Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik said. “When they went in and did it, they thought it was kind of a surface-type injury.”
After all, his performance will go a long way to whether the Mariners off-season spending spree helped get them into the playoffs. Seattle hasn’t been there since 2001, but looks loaded with talent after acquiring Chone Figgins and Milton Bradley, along with Lee.
He and Felix Hernandez could turn out to be the best 1-2 punch in the American League, certainly in the AL West, after each finished high in the Cy Young standings the past two seasons. Lee won it in ’08, and Hernandez was runner-up in ’09.
Lee was traded to the Mariners in a three-team swap that landed Roy Halladay in Philadelphia. Lee said he was stunned by the move after performing so well in the playoffs. He went 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA, including the Phillies’ only two World Series victories against the New York Yankees.
Lee only improves the Mariners odds to win a World Series. They are current 16/1 favorites to win the championship this season, according to Bodog.
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