DENVER — Kevin Millwood tossed a two-hitter for his first shutout in nearly nine years and Mike Carp hit a solo homer, helping the Seattle Mariners sn a four-game skid with a 4-0 win over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night.

It was also the 22nd complete game of the 37-year-old righty’s career.

Millwood (2-4) comfortably cruised through this game and didn’t surrender his first hit until two outs in the sixth. He struck out seven and walked one. He didn’t allow a runner to reach third until the ninth inning, but got Carlos Gonzalez to line out to end the game.

The Mariners improved to 2-6 on their 10-game, four-city road swing.

Carp hit his third homer of the season in the second, a towering shot to the deepest part of the park. Kyle Seager had an RBI single and drove in another on a sacrifice fly. John Jaso added an insurance run the ninth by bringing in Seager on a sac fly.

Alex White (0-3) was the hard-luck loser, dropping his sixth straight start in a dubious string that dates back to Sept. 16. After struggling early, White settled into a groove. He gave up three runs — two earned — and seven hits in seven solid innings.

After bouncing around, Millwood may have finally found a home with the Mariners.

The journeyman pitcher shuffled around the minor leagues with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for much of last season. He joined the Rockies rotation last August in an emergency situation, when Juan Nicasio was lost for the year after taking a line drive to the right temple and suffering a fractured skull along with a neck injury.

Millwood wound up 4-3 wearing Colorado’s purple pinstripes.

He once again had to prove himself this season, signing a minor league contract with Seattle. He started winless in his first six games this season, before beating the Yankees last Sunday.

Among all active pitchers, Millwood ranks fourth innings pitched (2,609), strikeouts (2,011) and games started (423). He’s also eighth in wins (165).

He flirted with a no-hitter, giving up his only two hits in the sixth inning. The first was on Marco Scutaro’s chopper that Seager couldn’t snare in the hole between third and short. The official scorer took a good, long look at the play before ruling it a hit. Jordan Pacheco followed with a single up the middle, but Scutaro was thrown out by Michael Saunders as he tried to advance to third.

Bee-ware

The swarm of bees that suddenly made Coors Field its new hive on Thursday brought back painful memories for Michael Cuddyer. That’s why he stayed clear of the buzzing mass which attached itself to a post near the Rockies’ dugout.

When Cuddyer was 17 years old, he was picking up the mail when he was stung more than dozen times by a bunch of bees that were residing underneath the mailbox.

“I was in the car and I couldn’t get out. I finally fell out of my car. It was bad,” Cuddyer recounted. “So, yeah, I’m terrified of bees.”

Mariners 4, Rockies 0 Seattle ab r h bi Colo. ab r h bi

Ackley 2b 4 0 0 0 Scutaro 2b 4 0 1 0

MSndrs cf 4 1 1 0 Pachec 3b 4 0 1 0

ISuzuki rf 4 1 2 0 CGnzlz lf 4 0 0 0

Seager 3b 3 1 2 2 Tlwtzk ss 3 0 0 0

Smoak 1b 4 0 1 0 Helton 1b 3 0 0 0

Jaso c 3 0 1 1 Cuddyr rf 3 0 0 0

Carp lf 3 1 1 1 WRosr c 3 0 0 0

C.Wells lf 1 0 0 0 Fowler cf 2 0 0 0

Ryan ss 2 0 0 0 White p 2 0 0 0

Millwd p 3 0 0 0 MtRynl p 0 0 0 0

Roenck p 0 0 0 0

EYong ph 0 0 0 0

Totals 31 4 8 4 Totals 28 0 2 0

Seattle 110 001 001 — 4

Colorado 000 000 000 — 0

E — W.Rosario (2). DP — Colorado 1. LOB — Seattle 3, Colorado 3. 2B — Jaso (6). 3B — M.Saunders (1), Seager (1). HR — Carp (3). SB — I.Suzuki (6), Fowler (3). CS — Seager (1). SF — Seager, Jaso.

Seattle IP H R ER BB SO

Millwood W,2-4 9 2 0 0 1 7

Colorado IP H R ER BB SO

White L,0-3 7 7 3 2 0 7

Mat.Reynolds 12/3 1 1 1 0 2

Roenicke 1/3 0 0 0 0 1

HBP — by Millwood (E.Young), by White (Ryan). T — 2:32. A — 34,887 (50,398).

These are the times that try Rockies’ fans souls.

On a night when the Rockies finally got some decent starting pitching at Coors Field, their bats went stone cold.

The Rockies were dominated by Seattle right-hander Kevin Millwood in a 4-0 loss. He flirted with a no-hitter and finished with a complete-game two-hitter. It was his first shutout in nearly nine years.

Millwood, 37, pitched for the Rockies last season. There was some interest in his returning, but the two sides could never agree on a free-agent deal, so Millwood signed with the Mariners.

Turning point. It’s safe to say it came in the very first inning when Millwood set the Rockies down in order, striking out Marco Scutaro and

inducing weak grounders from Jordan Pacheco and Carlos Gonzalez.

On the mound. Rockies starter Alex White pitched a solid seven innings, allowing three runs (two earned) on seven hits. He struck out seven and didn’t walk any. He did give up a solo home run to Mike Carp in the second inning.

“In my last outing, where I got hurt was not going after guys,” White said. “We have talked about that. With the stuff I have, I have to go after guys.

“The home run? That’s going to hpen. Nine times out of 10 he’s not going to hit that out of the park. I can live with that. I felt like I had good stuff tonight.”

Millwood, mixing a good fastball with sharp off-speed stuff, no-hit the Rockies through 5M innings. In the fifth, he struck out Michael Cuddyer looking on a 92 mph fastball, then struck out catcher Wilin Rosario looking, baffling him with a 75 mph curveball.

Millwood tossed the 22nd complete game of his career and his sixth career shutout.

After stints with the Yankees and Red Sox last season, he joined the Rockies’ rotation last August after Juan Nicasio was lost for the season after getting struck by a line drive and breaking his neck. Millwood wound up 4-3 with a 3.98 ERA for the Rockies in nine starts and was arguably their best pitcher during the final five weeks of the season.

Millwood signed a minor league contract with Seattle and was winless in his first six games this season, before beating the Yankees last Sunday.

Scutaro broke up the no-no with a questionable infield hit in the sixth, and Pacheco followed that up with a solid single up the middle. Scutaro, however, was thrown out by center fielder Michael Saunders as he tried to reach third off Pacheco’s hit.

It was the Rockies’ only real threat of the night.

“That was a bad play by me,” Scutaro said. “I have to make sure on a play like that. That was a perfect throw, but that’s not an excuse. I have to be smarter than that.”

At the plate. Seattle, hitting .230 as a team entering the game, struck quickly. A triple by Saunders and an RBI-single by Kyle Seager put the Mariners ahead 1-0 in the first. Carp’s solo homer in the second made it 2-0.

In the sixth, Ichiro Suzuki singled, stole second and advanced to third on Rosario’s wayward throw. Suzuki scored on Seager’s sacrifice fly.

The Rockies got shut out for the second time this season, both times at Coors Field. The first was a 7-0 loss to the Giants’ Barry Zito in the home opener.

Colorado managed just two hits off Millwood, a season low.

“He was painting the corners and really mixing his pitches,” Scutaro said.

Tracy tipped his c to Millwood, adding that he didn’t think the Rockies’ proach at the plate was bad.

“I didn’t see us getting ourselves out swinging at foolish pitches,” Tracy said. “I saw a guy that was throwing strikes to both sides of the plate effectively.”

What it means. The Rockies, who keep inventing new ways to lose, fell to 1-2 on the current homestand. They are 9-12 at home, 4-12 in a miserable May and 15-23 overall.

The next two games are critical, because the Rockies embark on a six-game road trip beginning Monday in Miami.

Danny Hultzen continues to pitch impressively at Double-A Jackson, and on Thursday night (May 17) he may have had his best game since getting drafted by the Seattle Mariners.

Going up against the Mobile Bay Bears, Hultzen went seven strong innings to pick up his fourth win of the season. That he won the game wasn’t the story, though, but rather that it only took him 46 pitches to do so. Throwing just 46 pitches over seven innings is almost unheard of, especially when you factor in that Hultzen struck out 8 batters.

I am continually impressed by Hultzen with each start he makes, and I have to give credit to the Mariners’ scouts for figuring out that he could become a true talent. When the 2011 MLB draft proached, no MLB analyst had Hultzen going as high as the No. 2 pick, and nobody pinned him as someone who Seattle would draft. We were all surprised by the selection, but he may be one of the two best pitching prospects in all of minor league baseball.

I think that Hultzen is figuring out the control issues that had dogged him in previous starts for Jackson, shown in the fact that he had has just 1 walk and 3 hits against him on Thursday night (May 17). It helped him to improve his record on the season to 4-3 and drop his ERA to just 1.81. This was the second straight game that the coaches pushed him to go seven innings, showing that he is working hard at going deeper in ball games as well.

I am very interested in seeing what type of stamina Hultzen has on the mound and whether he could pitch into the eighth or ninth inning for the Mariners. The team is really trying to take it easy on his arm as he works his way up through the system, but at some point the Mariners have to really let him show what he can do. Hultzen seems like a pitcher that could give eight quality innings, but I haven’t seen him do it yet myself.

It seems like the day when Hultzen gets promoted to Triple-A Tacoma is coming up very quickly, and I cannot wait to go see him pitch there. That is, unless the Mariners decide to allow him to skip Triple-A and get his feet wet with the big team towards the end of 2012.

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References:

Mariners_Pitching_Stats

Mariners_Hitting_Stats

Best_Mariners_Of_All_Time

Seattle_Mariners_Team_Page

*Ryan is a lifelong Seattle Mariners fan who never misses an opportunity to attend a game at Safeco Field. He has been attending games since 1985, and has fond memories of The Kingdome, Edgar Martinez, and the historic 1995 team. Sodo Mojo!

Jason Vargas couldn’t keep the Red Sox off that famed Green Monster in left field and Bellarmine Prep grad Jon Lester threw a complete-game in Boston’s 6-1 victory.

“You come to the plate, you can’t help seeing that left-field wall, it looks right there,” Dustin Ackley said. “I think their players adt to it. Right-handers pull the ball, lefties stay on it and go the other way.

“You can’t do that as a visiting player, you can’t change your swing for two games. I’ve only played here maybe six games, but that team has never failed to hit that wall in those games.”

In the end, Boston had nine hits Monday, the Mariners eight.

“Vargas wasn’t quite as sharp as he’s been, he left a couple of pitches up,” manager Eric Wedge said. “We had hits, we hit some balls hard, had some great at-bats – we just didn’t do any damage.

“Their offense was just the opposite.”

One out into the first inning, Dustin Pedroia walked and David Ortiz popped a fly ball off the Green Monster for an RBI double. In Safeco Field, it wouldn’t have reached the warning track.

Adrian Gonzalez hit an opposite-field ground double to left and it was 2-0.

“The doubles were what they were,” Vargas said. “You’ve got to play the dimensions of the park you’re in.”

Boston used the ballpark’s unique layout again in the fourth inning, with home runs to left field by Daniel Nava and Kelly Shoppach giving the Red Sox a 5-0 lead.

Green Monster specials?

“The home runs were not che,” Vargas said. “I should have done a better job of keeping us in the game. I didn’t.”

Against Lester, a left-hander whose earned-run average coming in was 4.29, the Seattle offense had trouble getting started. Lester retired the side in order the first three innings, then gave up a two-out infield single in the fourth to Ichiro Suzuki.

That was the Mariners’ first baserunner.

“The first two or three innings, he got into a zone and I think it carried over for him all night,” said Ackley, whose sixth-inning single extended his hitting streak to 10 games. “He had a great cutter, a great curveball.

“The only time he got in trouble was when he fell behind in the count and had to throw a fastball. He didn’t pitch to that ERA.”

No, and by night’s end, Lester had a 2-3 record with a 3.71 ERA. He threw 14 or fewer pitches in each of the first three innings. Lester finished with 119 pitches.

“When you get the batters making early contact and fly balls guy after guy, it helps,” Lester said.

Seattle banged out three hits in the seventh and not only didn’t score, they couldn’t keep all those men on base. Jesus Montero and Justin Smoak singled to open the inning, but Kyle Seager lined out to second base, and Montero was caught way off the bag for a double play.

Alex Liddi singled, but Michael Saunders popped out.

After Lester got the Mariners in order in the eighth inning, it looked like he’d become the fifth pitcher this season to shut out Seattle.

Ichiro singled and took third base on Smoak’s one-out double. Seager, the team RBI leader, drove home his 21st run with a ground ball to second base.

And that was the Mariners’ scoring for the night.

“He had great stuff and pitched his best when he was in trouble,” Ackley said.

The contributed to this report.

larry.larue@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners
@LarryLaRue

BOSTON — Boston Red Sox left-hander Jon Lester recorded a complete-game victory, losing his shutout in the ninth inning as Boston beat the Seattle Mariners 6-1 on Monday. Lester did not allow a hit until there were two outs in the fourth inning, when Ichiro Suzuki broke up Lester’s bid for his second career no-hitter with a comebacker that bounced off Lester’s glove for a single. “I think that’s everybody’s goal when they go out there, to throw a no-hitter, perfect game,” Lester said. “Just ended up giving up a base hit a little later than normal. I just was able to keep the ball down. It’s obviously in the back of your mind, but I don’t think it really becomes significant until the sixth, seventh inning. That’s when you’re cutting those outs down and you might have a chance.” Lester ended up allowing one run on eight hits with no walks and six strikeouts. He improved his record to 2-3 with a 3.60 ERA. “He went out and he looked like he had a mission to accomplish and he accomplished it,” said Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine. “He was throwing all of his pitches early in the game, throwing them all for strikes, had a very confident look about himself and just for you younger reporters out there, that’s called a complete game — when a starter starts and then he finishes it.” Complete games have become quite rare in this era of pitch counts. “His cutter was really good,” said the Mariners Dustin Ackley. “That thing looked like his fastball and it just breaks off at the last minute. When you have a pitch like that, you’re going to miss barrels a lot.” Sox batters got to Mariners lefty Jason Vargas early, scoring two runs in the first inning. Dustin Pedroia walked with one out, and he scored on David Ortiz’s double. Ortiz then scored on Adrian Gonzalez’s double. In the fourth inning, Daniel Nava’s first-pitch, two-run homer over the left field wall scored Cody Ross, who had singled. It was the first home run of the season for Nava, who was called up from Triple-A Pawtucket on Thursday. It was also the first home run in 171 major league at-bats. Nava hit a grand slam on the first pitch he saw in the major leagues, on June 12, 2010. He then shuttled between Boston and Pawtucket in 2010, and spent all of 2011 and the start of 2012 in Pawtucket. “I didn’t think it was gone,” Nava said. “Knowing how big the wall is and seeing some other balls guys have hit, I didn’t think it compared to Will Middlebrooks’ bomb or Kelly Shoppach. I was surprised. It barely squeaked over. But I’ll take it.” Shoppach’s first home run of the season, a solo shot over the left field wall, gave the Sox a five-run lead. Jason Vargas took the loss, falling to 4-3, with a 3.28 ERA. He went six innings, giving up five runs on seven hits and three walks with three strikeouts. “It looked like he left a changeup up and another pitch out over they put a pretty good swing on,” said Mariners manager Eric Wedge. “He didn’t quite have the command you see from him, but still pitched a pretty good ballgame. It’s just the hits they got were damage-oriented, whether it be a ball getting up on the wall or over the wall.” The Sox added another run in the eighth against Mariners reliever Sean Kelly when Marlon Byrd hit a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to score Middlebrooks. The Mariners scored their lone run when Kyle Seager’s groundout scored Suzuki, who singled and took third on Justin Smoak’s double. NOTES: With a home run and two RBI Sunday against the Indians, Red Sox third baseman Middlebrooks became the third player to accumulate at least four home runs and 13 RBI over his first 10 games in the majors…Dustin Ackley got a partial day off, serving as the designated hitter, with Kyle Seager playing second base…Mariners right-hander Blake Beavan is scheduled to start Tuesday, his first pearance since leaving his last game after three innings on May 7 against the Tigers after being hit on the right elbow by a shot off the bat of Miguel Cabrera that turned into an inning-ending double play. Beavan is 1-3 with a 4.32 ERA…Kevin Millwood induced three double-play grounders for the Mariners in their win over the Yankees on Sunday. It was the most double plays for Millwood since June 27, 2006, a span of 154 starts…Pedroia’s 14-game hitting streak was snped as he went 0-for-3 with a walk. It had been the longest active streak in the majors….The Sox have a four-game win streak in which they are outscoring opponents 29-8…The Mariners are 2-9 against the American League East this season… Suzuki’s two hits give him 2,471, tying him with Joe Medwick for 98th on the all-time hit list…Ackley has a 10-game hit streak in which he is batting .297, 11-for-37.

The Seattle Mariners have arrived in the place where many believed they might land in 2012. Granted, it is still relatively early in the season and the Mariners may eventually climb out of their current position. However, for now, the Mariners find themselves in the cellar of the American League West.

Not terrible, but not good

I don’t see the Mariners as a bad team. They just aren’t terribly good. When you are 15-20, I guess it is fair to say that you are well below average and heading towards dismal. A few more losses may put them squarely in the dreadful category, but hopefully they will at least pull out a few wins every so often. Overall, the team stats aren’t as bad as they have been the last couple of seasons. They just aren’t in the upper half of the league, and the Mariners are still trying to build consistent momentum.

Reason for optimism

There are signs of optimism. The pitching remains solid, and I do like this rotation. Overall, I think it is fair to say that the lineup is improved over last year, and a few of the young hitter pear to be blossoming. If the Mariners were more effective at the top of the lineup, this is an offense that might actually be able to do some damage in the future. Jesus Montero looks like the hitter everyone hoped he would be, and Kyle Seager is developing into a very solid player.

What can we hope for?

As a fan I do have to admit that it is hard to get excited about the reality that a best-case scenario for your team might be a .500 finish. You almost wish that other fan bases could understand what it is like to be loyal to a team and stick with them through long stretches of rough times. For example, if you are a follower of the New York Yankees, it doesn’t take much to be a fan. Who wouldn’t find it easy to follow a perennial contender in a league without a salary c? Talk about being totally spoiled.

Keep at it M’s. Perhs someday you will be a winner again.

Sources:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=320512110

The author lives in Los Angeles, but grew up in Seattle and still roots faithfully for the Mariners even though they are sometimes frustrating to watch. He gets to Seattle whenever he can to see his M’s. You can follow him on Twitter @tpheifer.

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If you’re a high school or collegiate baseball player with the skills and determination to go pro, John Gonsalves might want to talk with you.

Gonsalves is a part-time amateur scout with the Seattle Mariners and you might like what he has to say.

Of course, he has to like what he has to see.

“You have to pass the eye test,” said Gonsalves, a Carver resident in his fourth year working for the Mariners. “If you see someone who looks like an athlete, you just watch him play. You look for the five-tool type of player, of whom there are very few. (A five-tool player can hit, hit with power, has speed, can field and can throw – all at a high level).

“So you look at all their attributes and you grade them. You might see a kid who can hit mammoth home runs but strikes out half the time. But that power potential is something that pro teams are always looking for.

“For example, a kid might be an average runner, an average fielder with an average arm, but he has what they call plus power. That’s what (teams) are attracted to. If somebody has one great skill, like in pitching, if you have a 17-year-old kid who’s throwing 90, 92 miles an hour but has trouble finding the strike zone, he has a plus arm. So he’s someone you keep your eye on.

“You’re always looking for that one, or more, great skill. If you find one with all five, well, everybody else has found him, too.”

Then it’s up to which team gets the opportunity to select him when the amateur draft rolls around in June.

“With pitchers,” Gonsalves said, “you have to break down their delivery, find flaws in their delivery, watch their shoulder position, try to project whether they’ll be starters or relievers. That comes after watching kids throw quite a bit. The skill guys (veteran scouts) can do that.”

An Easton native who has lived in Carver for the last 11 years, Gonsalves, 54, is an amateur scout  who tracks high school kids, college players and other free agents who haven’t been signed yet.           

“A pro scout,” he said, “will go to minor league games and scout prospects within their own organization to see how they’re progressing and/or scout prospects in other organizations for possible trades.”

Pro scouts also scout other major league teams for various reasons. The scout’s parent team could be coming up soon on another MLB team’s schedule and a pre-series scouting report is due. Those “possible trades” might also figure in the scouting equation, as does another aspect of a scout’s learning process.

A face at Fenway

“The only pro scouting I do is at Fenway Park during September,” Gonsalves said. “Part of my training to be a scout is go to a bunch of pro games and actually scout the Red Sox. So I’m sitting there a couple of years ago, thinking, ‘What am I doing here? Here I am, a guy who lives in Carver, and I’m scouting Dustin Pedroia.’ The reason I was given is you can’t really scout a pro player unless you know what a pro player is.

“So I go to the Red Sox games early, watch batting practice, and watch how they proach the game. Then when I see college kids or high school kids, you try to see some of the same things. The Ce Cod League season (which Gonsalves also covers) is done by then, the draft was in June, college is certainly over, so it’s kind of a training ground to keep us on our toes.

“I do it every year. The fun part about it for me is you get to meet some of the older guys who have been around baseball for a long time and get to talk to them. You learn quite a bit.”

Gonsalves’ scouting area is the northeast, which embraces all six New England states and New York. Recently he was in warm, sunny Fort Myers, Fla., where he scouted some high school players as part of a working vacation.

“While I’m there, I give the scouting department a different look,” Gonsalves said in a phone interview. “Other scouts and I are there and everyone turns in a report on everybody they see.”

Gonsalves was not in Florida during spring training. He spent time watching New England college teams getting ready for the season.

“We try to cover every college,” he said. “We talk to the coach, find out who he believes his prospects are or draft-eligible players. College players are not draft-eligible until after their junior year (or if they’re 21 at least 45 days before the draft). So for three years we watch them, especially as a junior because they could be part of that year’s draft.

“Most college freshman we’ve seen as high school players and we just watch them progress. I keep files on them, file reports and go from there.”

Gonsalves said it is customary for big league organizations to pay for a draftee’s final collegiate year should he return to complete his degree.

Junior college players are draft-eligible at any time.

Gonsalves emphasized that scouts “just recommend the players. We don’t select them (in the draft).” That’s up to a team’s general manager and its scouting supervisor after all the players have been checked and cross-checked and final reports have been filed.

The highest draft pick of Seattle based partly on the recommendation of Gonsalves is power-hitting first baseman Mickey Wiswall of Stoneham and Boston College. He was drafted in the seventh round after his junior year in 2010 and is now with the High Desert Mavericks of the Class A Advanced California League.

Gonsalves grew up in Easton and attended Oliver Ames High School (Class of 1976). He was an infielder at OA and at UMass-Dartmouth (an ’81 grad), later played some semi-pro baseball, then started a family. He now has six kids and seven grandchildren.

His full-time job is that of a purchasing agent for a Middleboro firm that manufactures equipment for the packaging industry, but he finds time to serve as assistant boys varsity basketball coach at Oliver Ames in the winter and coach a Central Mass. AAU baseball team during the summer.

His high school connections helped Gonsalves land his scouting position. He was an assistant to Coyle-Cassidy baseball coach Brian Nichols, who eventually left that job for one in scouting. Now the east coast area scouting supervisor for the Mariners, Nichols asked Gonsalves to come aboard.

“Baseball is a good old boy network. It’s who you know,” Gonsalves said. “I’m sure there are a lot more qualified baseball people than I, but I just hpened to know the right guy.”

It’s not about the money

Money is not what anchors Gonsalves to scouting.

“It’s not a very lucrative job,” he said. “You don’t get paid a lot of money. I do it not so much for the money but for the love of the game. You get to see a lot of good players play and meet a lot of good coaches. That’s where I get most of my joy from. That’s very rewarding.”

Also rewarding is helping kids get into college, even if it means that a high school player he’s scouting, and recommends for drafting by the Mariners, will delay his signing a contract.

“Being a part-time scout,” Gonsalves said, “I talk to a lot of kids. It means as much to me if I can use my references that help a kid get a scholarship somewhere as it does getting a kid drafted in the 30^th or 40^th round and he might never make the big leagues. But a reference to a kid getting into a good school, that’s very rewarding. As I tell the kids, school really comes first. Get your education.

“If you’re looking at a kid in high school and you’re thinking about drafting him, chances are a lot of the top prospects have college offers at a Division 1 school. He’s pretty much set unless you draft him very high and unless you obviously give him a large signing bonus.”

Signing bonuses range widely, descending significantly from Round 1 of the Major League Baseball draft through the 50^{th    and final} round. The average first-round pick in 2010 got $2,220,966, 10^th-rounders were paid an average of $137,143, and those between rounds 41 and 50 received an average of $14,304.

Seattle’s first-round draft choice (second overall) in 2011, left-handed pitcher Danny Hultzen from the University of Virginia, signed a five-year contract worth $8.5 million. The deal for the 6-3, 200-pound Maryland native included a $6.35 million signing bonus and escalators that could push the total value to $10.6 million.

Hultzen, 22, is currently pitching for the Double-A Jackson (Tenn.) Generals of the Southern League.

“I spend a lot of time with high school and college kids. My biggest advice to kids – aside from the educational aspects – even if they’re not pro prospects but still good ballplayers, is that somebody’s always watching, somebody’s always observing how you play, how you act – sportsmanship. You never know who’s watching, so always hustle, never show a bad attitude because that is all part of the process.”       

Attitude is a big part of the process.

“One of the key questions is ‘What type of kid is he?’ Is he coachable? What’s his attitude? What’s he do when he fails? Baseball’s a tough game and you fail a lot of the time, so what does he do when he fails?

“If I see a kid who’s been great, and I call in someone else to watch him and that person sees him once and at his worst (attitude-wise), that’s it. They don’t want to see him anymore. That can be as damaging as it could be. Like anybody else you’d recommend in any job, that’s a bad recommendation for you. And that’s really what you want to avoid, obviously.”

Making a house call

Another way to judge a prospective draftee is to make a home visit, dig right in and poke around up close and personal. It’s akin to college basketball coaches on a recruiting trip.

Said Gonsalves, “That’s a great way to find out more about the kid, find out about his family, find out where he’s going to go to school, find out if he’s interested in the draft. Basically, try to find out his draftability.

“You might have a kid who’s going to Brown University, his father’s a surgeon, and he might be a great pitcher and you ask him. ‘Are you interested in playing pro baseball?’ And he says, ‘Well, maybe after I graduate from Brown. I want to be a surgeon like my dad.’ That’s part of those discussions.

“The other part of it could be the kid doesn’t really want to go to college and wants to start (pro ball) right away. Those kids will say, ‘Please sign me. I’ll play for anything. Just give me a chance.’ ”

Projectability and comparisons are two key words in a scout’s vocabulary.

“You try to project what 16- and 17-year-old kids you’re looking at will be like at 21 or 22,” Gonsalves said. “That’s the skill part of it, to take a kid and break him down and say ‘in five years this kid is going to do this, or he’ll be doing that.’ That comes from experience.

“When it comes to comparisons, when you file a report, you might say, ‘This kid hits like Pedroia’ or ‘this guy pitches like Jon Lester.’ ”

Talent like that would make any scout one hpy fella.

He never recovered.

Moments after Jesus Montero’s solo home run against his former teammates put Seattle ahead, the New York Yankees rode a two-out, three-run home run by former Mariner Raul Ibañez to a two-run lead that became a 6-2 victory.

It wasn’t as if Hernandez was dominant one moment, lost the next – this one was a battle for him for most of his 62/3 innings. When he got to the sixth inning tied, it was as much a matter of will as control.

Though Hernandez may be one of those pitchers who can get away with subpar games like this – he allowed 11 hits in less than seven innings – he cannot do it without runs.

For five innings against New York and Hiroki Kuroda, the Mariners gave Felix one run, that coming on the first leadoff home run of Dustin Ackley’s career.

One batter. One swing. One run.

Six innings later, it was still all the Mariners had, and they would have trailed by then had left fielder Mike Carp not thrown out Alex Rodriguez at plate in the fourth inning.

“It was the first time I’ve really cut loose a throw since I got hurt in Jan,” Carp said. “I came up with the ball, tried to stay on top of it and made a pretty good throw.

“If nothing else, that’ll help my mindset from now on.”

That play was as much a matter of third base coach Rob Thomson’s poor decision as Carp’s arm. Had Thomson held up A-Rod, the Yankees would have had the bases loaded with no one out.

Instead, the game remained tied and a big inning was gutted.

So when Montero silenced Yankees fans with his fifth home run of the season, the Mariners had a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning.

Felix couldn’t hold it.

“I gave up a lot of singles but controlled it until that one pitch to Raul,” Hernandez said. “I started him each at-bat with a sinker but that pitch didn’t sink. That’s the one pitch tonight I want back.”

Hernandez uncharacteristically walked the first man he faced in the sixth, Rodriguez, and gave up one of Robinson Cano’s four hits to put two men on with no one out.

He rallied for a force out, then a strikeout – his seventh – to bring up Ibañez.

The man who came up through the Seattle organization is universally well-liked by those he has played with – the Mariners, Royals, Phillies and Yankees – and against.

After hitting his sixth home run into the right-field stands, Ibañez is still one of Hernandez’s favorite ex-teammates. He just didn’t like him quite as much for a few moments.

“One pitch, game over,” Hernandez said.

After six innings, it seemed that way. After nine, it was hard to argue, even though New York had tacked on two more against the Mariners’ bullpen.

“Maybe he wasn’t quite as sharp as we’ve seen Felix, but you have to remember, he was within a pitch in the sixth inning of taking a 2-1 lead into the seventh,” manager Eric Wedge said.

What beat the Mariners, Wedge said, were two innings filled with opportunity, none of them realized.

“One inning (the second), we had runners at first and second base, no one out; the other (the fifth), we had the bases loaded with one out, and we didn’t score either time,” Wedge said. “You get a run in each of those, different game.”

The Yankees wouldn’t argue.

In the second inning, the Mariners used a Kyle Seager single and walk to John Jaso to create a threat, but Kuroda retired Justin Smoak, Carp and Michael Saunders without allowing the runners to advance.

“I felt better tonight,” said Smoak, who had three hits. “But that first at-bat, I had a fastball over the plate, and I’ve got to do more with that.”

Again in the fifth, the Mariners rallied – singles by Smoak and Saunders, a walk to Ackley – this time with one out. Kuroda struck out Brendan Ryan, then got No. 3 hitter Ichiro Suzuki to ground into a force play at third base.

As a result, Hernandez had no margin to work with. After the sixth, he trailed 4-2, then was knocked flat on the mound by a Derek Jeter single up the middle.

“That was close,” Hernandez said, shaking his head. “I stayed down a minute on that one.”

It was Seattle’s seventh road loss in a row, and the trip gets no easier: two more against New York, then two in Boston, a pair in Cleveland and three in Colorado.

OOPS, IT’S A WINNER

Now it can be told: Saunders started the winning rally Wednesday at Safeco Field with an opposite-field double, scoring the winning run on a Jaso sacrifice fly.

The kicker?

“It was an excuse-me swing and I didn’t know where the ball was when I first hit it,” Saunders said Friday. “I thought maybe I’d fouled it off the other way. Then I saw it and took off.”

OLIVO REHABBING

Catcher Miguel Olivo isn’t on the trip, staying behind to rehab a strained groin muscle.

He’s far enough along he might catch a bullpen session or two with the Tacoma Rainiers. The team expects to re-evaluate him after the trip, then determine if he needs a stint in the minors before being activated.

TODAY

Seattle (Hector Noesi: 2-3, 6.30 ERA) at New York Yankees (Phil Hughes: 2-4, 6.67), 1:05 p.m., Root Sports, 1240-AM, 1030-AM

larry.larue@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners Twitter: @LarryLarue

The best efforts of one former New York Yankees prospect could not help the Seattle Mariners end their current road skid.

Another is ready to give it a shot.

Ex-Yankee Hector Noesi aims to earn his first win away from home and help the Mariners avoid an eighth straight road loss Saturday against the Yankees.

Catcher Jesus Montero, who had four homers and 13 RBIs in 19 regular season and playoff games with New York in 2011, hit one of Seattle’s two home runs in Friday’s 6-2 series-opening loss. The Yankees dealt Montero and Noesi to Seattle in a four-player offseason trade that brought All-Star pitcher Michael Pineda – now out for the season with a shoulder injury – to New York.

Montero is batting .267 with five home runs and 17 RBIs in 30 games, but his solo shot Friday is his only hit in eight at-bats over his last three contests.

Noesi (2-3, 6.30 ERA), who went 2-2 with a 4.47 ERA in 30 games – two starts – for the Yankees during his 2011 rookie season, has struggled with consistency in Seattle. The right-hander is 0-2 with a 9.22 ERA in three road starts, but is looking forward to taking the mound in the Bronx, where he went 1-1 with a 2.59 ERA in 14 pearances – one start – for the Yankees in 2011.

“It’s not like I’m really excited to come back because now I play for Seattle,” Noesi told the Mariners’ official website. “But (I’m) kind of a little excited.”

Noesi allowed a solo home run and three other hits Sunday while striking out five in seven innings of a 5-2 home win over major league-worst Minnesota.

“I felt like he just continued what we’d seen the last couple starts, doing a good job commanding his fastball, reaching out front and really finishing off his pitches and using all his secondary stuff,” manager Eric Wedge said.

Noesi will now try to help Seattle (15-19) end its longest losing streak away from home since a 13-game road skid that concluded with a 9-2 win at Yankee Stadium last July 27 – a victory that also snped a 17-game overall losing streak.

Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano had four hits Friday, improving to 11 for 21 with seven RBIs in his last five games against the Mariners. He’s batting .444 with eight RBIs in his last nine contests overall.

Former Mariners outfielder Raul Ibanez hit a three-run homer for New York in the series opener, giving him three home runs and six RBIs over his last three games.

Seeking their sixth win in eight games, the Yankees (18-14) hope scheduled starter Phil Hughes (2-4, 6.67) can build on his longest outing – and likely his best – of 2012.

The right-hander, who had allowed eight runs over 8 1-3 innings while losing his previous two starts, yielded three runs and struck out seven in 6 2-3 innings of a 10-4 victory at Kansas City on Sunday.

It marked only the second time Hughes allowed three runs or fewer this season, and the first time he lasted through the sixth inning. The effort was probably enough keep him in the rotation even after Andy Petttitte’s scheduled return to the mound Sunday.

“If I continue to pitch well and throw well, I’m sure I’ll gain more trust,” Hughes told the Yankees’ official website. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Hughes is 2-2 with a 3.52 ERA in five career starts versus Seattle.

NEW YORK — The Seattle Mariners looked like the winners of the Jesus Montero-Michael Pineda trade when Pineda underwent season-ending right shoulder surgery before he threw a regular season pitch for the New York Yankees. But Raul Ibanez — the player signed to at least partially fill the vacancy at designated hitter created by the trade of Montero — made sure the Yankees won the first meeting of the season between the two teams Friday. Ibanez hit a go-ahead three-run homer in the sixth inning, Robinson Cano continued his torrid hitting by going 4-for-4 and Hiroki Kuroda threw seven solid innings as the New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners,6-2, Friday night in front of 37,226 at Yankee Stadium. Ibanez was signed as a free agent Feb. 21, 29 days after Montero and Hector Noesi were sent to Seattle in exchange for Pineda and minor league pitcher Jose Campos. The 39-year-old, who has made more starts in left(nine) than at DH (eight) because of Brett Gardner’s elbow injury, has six homers, including three that have given the Yankees the lead. “I try not to think about it too much,” Ibanez said of his penchant for homering in the clutch. “I’m just trying to have a good at-bat and try to hit the ball solidly.” Mariners starter Felix Hernandez bent but didn’t break until Ibanez’ homer, which was the ninth of the Yankees’ 11 hits off Hernandez but their lone for extra bases. The Yankees had runners on against Hernandez in every inning except the third but ran into outs in the first and fourth. “We had an opportunity and didn’t score earlier, then we seemed to put it together,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “I thought our guys put good at-bats on him tonight.” Montero’s solo homer in the sixth put the Mariners up 2-1 before the Yankees broke through in the bottom half. Alex Rodriguez drew a leadoff walk, went to second on Cano’s single and advanced to third on Mark Teixeira’s fielder’s choice grounder. After Nick Swisher struck out, Ibanez crushed Hernandez’ next pitch over the right field fence. Andruw Jones hit a pinch-hit two-run homer in the eighth for the final margin. Every starter except Russell Martin had at least one hit for the Yankees. The four hits by Cano give him 14 hits in his last 26 at-bats while his seventh-inning double extended his streak of games with an extra-base hit to five. Prior to this current hot stretch, Cano went 10 straight games without an extra-base hit. “When I was watching him and he was struggling, he didn’t really look any different to me,” Girardi said. “(Hitting coach) Kevin (Long) will talk about guys just a tick early or a tick late sometimes. You go through that in your at-bats and he just found his timing. He’s squaring balls up against everybody.” Kuroda (3-4) allowed two runs-including a homer leading off the first by Dustin Ackley-on six hits and three walks while striking out two. The Mariners put two runners on in the second and loaded the bases in the fifth but didn’t score either time. “We had a first and second situation with nobody out and a bases loaded situation with one out and we don’t score a run,” Mariners manager Eric Wedge said. “It could have been the difference right there.” Hernandez (3-2) entered Friday 3-0 with a 0.38 ERA in three starts at the new Yankee Stadium but gave up the four runs and issued two walks while striking out seven in 6 2/3 innings. Justin Smoak had three singles for the Mariners. NOTES: The Eduardo Nunez Experiment pears to be over after the Yankees optioned the shortstop-turned-utilityman to Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in order to make room for Eric Chavez, who returned from the 7-day disabled list. Nunez, who mostly played shortstop as a minor leaguer, started at five different positions for the Yankees this year (second base, third base, shortstop, left field and designated hitter) but struggled in the field with four errors — including two Thursday night at third base that led to unearned runs — and several near-misses in left field. Joe Girardi said Nunez will play six days a week at shortstop and another day at second base at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. “We asked Nunez to do some things that you usually ask more of a veteran player to do,” Girardi said. “When I look at ‘Nuney’ and ‘Nuney’s’ future, I don’t see ‘Nuney’ as a utility guy. I see him as an everyday player. So we made this move.” … Girardi said Friday was day two of outfielder Brett Gardner’s 10-day break from hitting as he recovers from aggravating a strained muscle in his elbow during a rehab assignment this week. Gardner went on the DL with the elbow injury ril 18. … Mariners manager Eric Wedge said right-handed pitcher Blake Beaven, who left his start against the Tigers Monday after he was hit on the right elbow by a line drive, will start against the Red Sox Tuesday. … Montero played his first game against the Yankees since the January trade that sent him to Seattle in exchange for pitcher Michael Pineda. While Pineda underwent season-ending right shoulder surgery before ever throwing a regular season pitch for the Yankees, Montero has settled in as the Mariners’ cleanup hitter and is splitting time between catcher and designated hitter. “I was surprised (by the trade) but after that I was hpy, because I’m here with more opportunity to play,” Montero said.