Ketel Marte Selected For Futures Game

This morning the rosters for the annual Major League Baseball All-Star Futures Game were released, and two Mariners prospects got the nod: Double-A Jackson starting pitcher Edwin Diaz, and Tacoma shortstop Ketel Marte.

Reading between the lines, this seems to indicate that Marte is going to be ready to play real soon. If he wasn’t physically able to play in the Futures Game – which is on Sunday, July 12 – I don’t believe the Mariners would have agreed to make him available.

Marte has been on the disabled list since straining ligaments and suffering a mild fracture in his left thumb sliding into second base on May 31. He’s been down in Arizona at the Peoria complex rehabilitating it, so we haven’t been able to keep tabs on his progress up here. At the time of the injury, they said he’ll be out four-to-six weeks, so we’re in the early portion of that window right now.

The Futures Game selection is a big honor for Marte. The 21-year-old shortstop was hitting .343 after 51 games this season, and was leading the league in hits at the time of his injury.

Hopefully he’ll return to Tacoma and get some games under his belt before the all-star break.

RAINIERS ROUND-UP

Yesterday: While it was a close and tense game, the Rainiers had missed opportunities and mistakes in a 6-4 loss to Reno last night. Twice Tacoma had a runner at third with one out and couldn’t bring him home. Then in a tie game with two outs in the ninth, Tacoma issued two straight bases loaded walks to force in runs. Yuck. Today is a new day.

Today: Reno (33-39) at Tacoma (35-38), 7:05 (Pacific).

Opponent Affiliation: Arizona Diamondbacks.

Season Series: Reno leads, 3-2.

Starting Pitchers: RHP Caleb Clay (4-5, 5.23) at RHP Hisashi Iwakuma (—)

Kuma is slated to make a rehabilitation start for the Rainiers. He’s been on the Mariners disabled list since April 25 with a strained right lat. In three starts for Seattle, he went 0-1, 6.61. Iwakuma had a rehab start for Everett on Saturday and lasted 3.2 innings; we’ll see if he can go a bit longer tonight. Regularly scheduled starter Forrest Snow will follow him from the bullpen.

Roster Move: Yesterday afternoon the Mariners called up Franklin Gutierrez and optioned James Jones to Tacoma. Gutierrez’s comeback is a great story – he went 1-for-3 with a sac fly and RBI for the Mariners last night.

Hot Rainiers: Chris Taylor has a 12-game hitting streak, going 19-for-54 (.351) during the streak. Carlos Rivero has homered in three straight games, he has hit safely in 11 of his last 12 games, has reached base safely in 15 straight, and is batting .358 in June.

Look Out For: Nick Evans has a ten-game hitting streak. Jamie Romak is 10-for-17 with two homers and 10 RBI in five games against Tacoma this season.

Broadcast: The pregame show starts at 6:50 (Pacific) on South Sound Sports 850 AM. The broadcast also streams online via the TuneIn app – just click here.

PCL Scoreboard: Follow all Pacific Coast League games in real-time with links to Gameday screens right here.

Links:

• The Rainiers game story has quotes from a not-exactly-happy manager Pat Listach.
• For more on the Futures Game, Baseball America is the place to go. They have capsules with links to stats on all of the players for the US Team and the World Team.
• The Mariners lost an odd one last night when starter Roenis Elias was perfect for three innings before allowing seven runs in the fourth.
• Bob Dutton’s Mariners Notebook caught up with Franklin Gutierrez, and also has results from Mariners prospects in various minor league all-star games that were played on Tuesday.
• There were some exciting finishes in the PCL last night. Salt Lake’s C.J. Cron hit a three-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the eighth to give the Bees a 5-4 win over Las Vegas.
• Sacramento’s bullpen polished off a two-hit shutout of hard-hitting Fresno for a 2-0 win. The Fresno paper has a story on the Grizzlies latest top prospect, Mark Appel, who makes his Triple-A debut Saturday at Reno.
• El Paso scored some needed insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth and withstood a ninth inning rally to hold on for a 7-6 win over Albuquerque.
• The real thriller was in Oklahoma City, where Dodgers top prospect Corey Seager homered twice to help his team take a 6-3 lead into the ninth inning. But the shortstop made an error to extend the ninth, and Colorado Springs capitalized with a four-run rally capped off by a three-run homer from Yadiel Rivera (his first in 129 at-bats this season). The Sky Sox won, 7-6. The game showed why there is a debate about what position Seager should play.
• Round Rock ace Anthony Ranaudo returned to his roots in Louisiana and proceeded to get lit up by New Orleans in a 6-3 loss. Adam Conley tossed six shutout innings for the Zephyrs.
• Memphis hit well and coasted to a 9-4 win over visiting Nashville.
• Omaha and Iowa were rained out – they’re playing two today.

Hey, it’s Thirsty Thursday!