Thankfully the Rainiers counter the Mariners’ ineptness. Tacoma is in the PCL playoffs and we took a minute to talk to top Mariners prospect Dustin Ackley:
You’ve played a lot the past year. How are you holding up?: “There’s a little fatigue. I think I feel better now than I did the first two months of the season when I was in West Tennessee. I think it’s just a matter of getting adjusted and knowing how to treat your body right. Get your rest.”
On his slump in Double A to start the season: “It was tough. I had a couple minor slumps in college, 30, 40 something at-bats. But never like a whole month or month and half. I just kind of told myself I’ve never experienced this before, I felt like it was only a matter of time before I was able to kind of get adjusted and hopefully come out of it. I just took at-bats and took time at second base to get used to that.”
How he views it now: “I felt like it’s good for me. To have the whole year and never fail would have probably been worse then me having to actually fail and try to come out of it. Kind of learned stuff about myself and about my swing. Just everything.”
On how Triple A pitchers have treated him: “Lefties, righties, we’ve seen a lot of off-speed as a team. Lot of pitchers do the same thing to you. They’ll throw changeups, curveballs in hitter’s counts, 2-0, 3-1, 3-2. You rarely ever see a fastball.”
On being called up: “I haven’t been told anything. I’m just going to try to finish this season out as strong as I can. If they call me up, that’s awesome. but if not I’m going to go home and get some rest and come out for the fall league.”
On adding weight in the offseason: “I feel like I have a lot of room to grow. I hope to gain, 10, 15 more pounds to help me out. I don’t think it will slow me down speedwise or anything like that. I definitely think it could help me. I think things are coming along a lot better than they were. The first time I really played second base was in Fall League. I never really played there before. Now I feel 10 times better than I did. Just as far as comfort level.”
On talk about how hard it is to hit it out of Safeco Field: “Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot. I’ve heard there aren’t many balls hit out here. Especially with the dimension of the fields, I’ve heard it’s pretty tough. After taking BP out there, I got one in BP, but left center, center field, right center, it’s pretty deep out there.”
