SEATTLE — Jarred Kelenic has all the time performed with an emotional edge, typically admittedly to a fault, and now the Mariners outfielder can be sidelined for the foreseeable future after, in his phrases, he “let the emotions get the best of me.”
Kelenic suffered a left foot fracture after kicking a Gatorade cooler within the residence dugout following a nine-pitch strikeout in the course of the ninth inning of Seattle’s 6-3 loss to Minnesota on Wednesday, when he was at bat because the tying run.
“I just feel terrible,” a visibly distraught and teary Kelenic mentioned on Thursday morning. “Especially for the guys. I just let the emotions get the best of me, and I just let them down. I take full responsibility for it. It’s on me. That just can’t happen.”
After watching a curveball land in the midst of the zone, following some aggressive fouls on pitches nicely above 100 mph from Jhoan Duran, Kelenic stormed again to the dugout and dented the cooler.
“We came up last night with the game on the line, two guys on against arguably the best closer in baseball,” Kelenic mentioned. “And I just put together a good at-bat, was just grinding, and unfortunately couldn’t come through. And like I said, I made a mistake.”
Surgery isn’t wanted, per Mariners supervisor Scott Servais. But Kelenic can be out for an prolonged interval.
“Not from what I’ve been told,” Servais mentioned of surgical procedure. “I know it’s his left foot. A broken bone, I don’t know what the timetable is, but it takes a while for those things to heal. So he’ll be in a boot and immobilized for the time being.”
In the interim, outfielder Cade Marlowe — the Mariners’ No. 14 prospect per MLB Pipeline — was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma. The lefty-hitting Marlowe will probably platoon with veteran AJ Pollock in the intervening time.
“[Marlowe will] get an opportunity to play,” Servais mentioned. “We’re going to fire him right into the day and let him go. Again, trying to do what’s best, put players in the best position to have success. And we’ve got some right-handed guys off the bench who can help if there’s a left-hander out there. So, see what the game brings us, but he’ll get an opportunity to play and see what he does with it.”
Kelenic has lengthy been recognized for his emotional flareups, significantly throughout his rookie season if a name or break did not go his manner. And though there have been occasional such moments in 2023, they’d been fewer and farther between and extra subdued — till Wednesday. He’s been much more deliberate about his psychological strategy, relationship all the way in which again to when he arrived at Spring Training.
“I love to win,” he mentioned. “I’m a huge competitor, and that’s the hardest part; I can’t be out there to help the guys.”
Kelenic has cooled mightily on offense since his red-hot April, when he was amongst MLB’s most efficient gamers. But he’s nonetheless been a key cog to a Seattle lineup that’s been much more pedestrian than its entrance workplace anticipated.
Since hitting .322/.375/.644 (1.019 OPS) in his first 25 video games, which featured a few of Seattle’s greatest highlights of the yr, Kelenic has hit .226/.301/.364 (.665 OPS) in his ensuing 65 whereas seeing his strikeout charge climb to 32.6% for the season, third-highest in MLB.
“Nobody feels worse about it than Jarred does,” Servais mentioned. “I think it’s a learning lesson for him, for all players. Players get frustrated when they’re not getting the results they’re looking for. But you’ve got to be able to control your emotions. That’s part of being a professional. Last night he let it get the best of him, and it affects all of us.”
The improvement comes at a time when the Mariners proceed to hover round .500 with lower than two weeks till the Aug. 1 Trade Deadline, with offense being their major want. And now that they’ve misplaced one in all their on a regular basis offensive contributors, the outlook to how they strategy the Deadline turns into a lot murkier.
“It’s a very average offensive team and we have to find a way to become better than average,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said earlier Thursday on his weekly radio hit with Seattle Sports. “It’s going to require some creative moves because we don’t have the next wave of bats at Triple-A ready to come and push us over that edge.”
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