New father Shawn Kelley has had a week to enjoy life with son Parker Andrew, though today he’s more likely to reacquaint himself with Tommy John.
A right-handed reliever for the Seattle Mariners, Kelley has already had that major reconstructive elbow surgery once, and is in Los Angeles today so Dr. Lewis Yocum can look at that right elbow again and determine what ails it.
“I’m ready to get this done and move on,” Kelley said by telephone. “It’s more likely to be Tommy John surgery than not, but I won’t know until I wake up. I’m prepared for anything.”
Kelley hasn’t pitched since June 16, and could have had the surgery earlier in August but wife Kelsey was due with their first child and delivered Aug. 26 in Tennessee.
“He had a little baby so he has been busy for a couple of weeks,” manager Daren Brown said Tuesday. “We pushed back the surgery to let him spend some time with the family.
“Now, hopefully, they find what’s going on and take care of it. We should have an answer with what was wrong.”
A hard-throwing middle reliever who occasionally was used as a set-up man, Kelley appeared in 22 games and went 3-1 with a 3.96 earned run average in this, his second season.
If the 26-year-old does need and get Tommy John surgery today, he will likely miss all of the 2011 season.
GAFFE DEBRIEFING
A day after his ninth-inning base-running gaffe cost the Mariners an out and perhaps a rally, Franklin Gutierrez and Brown talked it over.
Down three runs, Gutierrez doubled Casey Kotchman to third base with no one out, but thinking Kotchman would try to score, Gutierrez rounded second base too far and was thrown out.
What did Brown tell his outfielder?
“I’m not going to hammer a guy who’s busted his butt all season,” Brown said. “For me, there are times in games when it’s important to be aggressive and times when it’s not. When you are down by three runs, that’s not the time.
“We were in good position with two on and Michael Saunders, Adam Moore and Ryan Langerhans coming up. If any of those guys get on, you have Ichiro (Suzuki) coming up. I think if we don’t make an out there, we give ourselves a chance to tie the game and – who knows? – maybe win it.”
SHORT HOPS
Saunders returned to left field Monday night after missing more than a week with a bruised shoulder – the result of slamming into the left field wall. How did he handle himself in the field? “No one hit a ball to me all night,” Saunders said. … With 30 games to go, Ichiro has 34 stolen bases – eight more than he had all of last season. He hasn’t stolen more than 45 bases in a season since swiping 56 in his rookie season of 2001.
ON TAP
Seattle and Los Angeles complete their series with a 7:10 p.m. game today at Safeco Field . Probable starting pitchers: Trevor Bell (1-4, 5.07 ERA) vs. Jason Vargas (9-7, 3.53).
larry.larue@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners
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