One week from Tuesday, Robinson Cano will rejoin the Seattle Mariners. Cano is currently serving an 80-game suspension for violating the league's performance-enhancing drug policy, and he is eligible to be activated August 14. At the time of the suspension, Cano was on the disabled list with a broken hand suffered on a hit-by-pitch.
The hand has healed, and, on Monday, Cano started what amounts to a minor league tune-up stint to prepare himself for his return to the Mariners. With Dee Gordon now entrenched at second base, Cano is expected to play first and third bases for the Mariners when he returns. The team does not want to move Gordon back to center field in the middle of the season.
Monday night Cano played first base for the first time in his professional career, and he even made a nice scoop on a short-hop throw from the third baseman. Check it out:
Canó out here picking balls in the dirt like he's a career first baseman. pic.twitter.com/XbTgemmlDt
— Tacoma Rainiers (@RainiersLand) August 7, 2018
Cano went 1 for 3 with a walk in Monday's game. TJ Cotterhill and Josh Kirshenbaum of the Tacoma News Tribune have more on his first night as a first baseman:
He played eight innings at first on Monday with some very comfortable-looking plays using a first-base glove given to him by fellow Dominican Albert Pujols. Cano picked a throw out of the dirt from Seth Mejias-Brean, later switched feet on the bag and caught a high throw on the foul side of first base and still kept his right foot on the bag for another out, all while dodging the runner. Though one line drive careened off his glove to second baseman Gordon Beckham.
Cano called playing first base "really weird," though he had been working out there at his home in the Dominican Republic while suspensed. The plan is for Cano to play again Tuesday, rest Wednesday, then play Thursday through Sunday before rejoining the Mariners next Tuesday for the second game of an important three-game series against the Athletics.
"Cano definitely helps. His absence has been felt, there's no question," said Jonah Keri on CBS Sports HQ (video above). "There are other guys that have cooled off in that lineup. They have (first baseman) Ryon Healy hitting bombs, but he's got an on-base percentage sitting around .270 or so."
Undoubtedly, getting Cano back will help a Mariners offense that has averaged 3.50 runs per game since the All-Star break and 2.88 runs per game in their last eight games. Cano hit .287/.385/.441 with four home runs in 39 games earlier this season, though it is fair to wonder how he'll perform after the suspension, after the hand injury, and after the long layoff.
Cano can help the offense The real problem with the Mariners right now is their run prevention, particularly the starting pitching with Felix Hernandez continuing to struggle and Wade LeBlanc coming back to Earth. Seattle has averaged 5.40 runs allowed per game in their last 10 games and 5.04 runs per game over the last calendar month. That has coincided with the team's 9-16 skid, which has dropped them behind the A's in the race for the second wild card spot.
"The bigger issue with Seattle is they don't have the supporting cast that Oakland or the Yankees do," added Keri. "They have the same weak starting rotation -- James Paxton is very good and after that it gets dicey ...It felt like it was out there for Seattle to at least get a guy (at the trade deadline), and they didn't do that. The starting rotation kinda stinks."
Paxton and Marco Gonzales have been very good all season, and Mike Leake continues to be the league average plow horse he's been pretty much his entire career. Hernandez is essentially on a start-to-start basis at this point, and it's unclear whether the Mariners would pull the plug on LeBlanc, especially after signing him to a contract extension a few weeks ago.
Seattle does have Roenis Elias in the bullpen and Erasmo Ramirez on the rehab trail following a lat injury. They have some warm bodies for rotation depth. Do they up the quality of the rotation? Hey, maybe. Who's to say Ramirez can't go on an eight-week hot streak a la LeBlanc? There's always the possibility of an August waiver trade for rotation help as well.
For now, the Mariners are in a tight race for the second wild card spot -- they come in to Tuesday two games behind the A's for that second wild card spot -- and getting Cano back will help. He's an upgrade over Healy and, in a race this close, every little upgrade moves you that much closer to the postseason.
