There might not be a better way to spend three or so hours getting from New York to Boston than taking the Amtrak Acela Express.

The seats are wide and leg-room is plentiful, making the journey much better than flying, in my humble opinion. And you can eat something besides old peanuts or pretzels.

I have set up shop inside Fenway Park and several of the Mariners are playing football behind third base. Not exactly, bone-crunching tackle football, but game of catch the football, which is one of the ways the team’s conditioning staff breaks up the monotony of running.

Word just came through that right-handed reliever Shawn Kelley has been activated from the 15-day disabled list and first baseman Mike Carp was sent back to Triple-A Tacoma. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Carp didn’t get to play much during his two-plus weeks here, but he soaked it all in and the experience, brief as it was, will come in handy the next time he’s promoted.

The kid has a good swing and a fine future, possibly as a left fielder.

Getting Kelley back is a huge boost for the ‘pen. The rookie was one of the Spring Training surprises and started the regular season with gusto, compiling a 1.54 ERA in his first 10 big-league appearances. He was moving deeper into games, working the sixth, seventh and eighth innings before suffering a strained left oblique while throwing a pitch against the Rangers on May 6 at Safeco Field, going down in a heap after throwing his third pitch of the game.

His return gives Seattle arguably the strongest bullpen in the AL. Kelley, Miguel Batista, Mark Lowe and David Aardsma all throw hard.

We’ll get back to you with the lineups later, but I expect to see Ryan Langerhans name in there again. He had some quality at-bats in his Mariners debut against the Yankees last night.

And here is the lineup:

1. Ichiro, RF

2. Russell Branyan, 1B

3. Jose Lopez, 2B

4. Ken Griffey Jr., DH

5. Franklin Gutierrez, CF

6. Ryan Langerhans, LF

7. Chris Woodward, 3B

8. Rob Johnson, C

9. Ronny Cedeno, SS

P Felix Hernandez

— Jim Street