Left-hander Ryan Rowland-Smith was a little worried before the game that he might embarrass himself on offense.

He had not had a bat in his hands in a game situation since he was 17 years old, nearly nine years ago.

Not to worry.

He slapped a single to left field in the second inning and lined a single to left field in the fourth inning, scoring runs each time.

“I don’t want to look stupid and embarrass myself,” he said  before the game. “What it will look like I have no idea. I just don’t want to look like Charles Barkley’s golf swing. Have you seen that?”

The answer is yes and Rowland-Smith’s swing looked a lot more like Tiger’s swing.

— Jim Street

There was good news coming out of Peoria this morning.

Ailing starters Erik Bedard and Brandon Morrow tested their aches and pains and apparently made it through their throwing sessions well.

Bedard, stymied almost a week because of a muscle strain in his right buttocks, had a 30-pitch bullpen workout.

“Everything was good,” manager Don Wakamatsu said. “He felt no pain.”

Morrow, out of action for almaost twice as long as his left-handed counterpart, had a 20-pitch session from a shorter distance to test the discomfort he’s felt in his right forearm.

That also went well.

Even so, Wakamatsu said Morrow’s readiness for the regular season remains “iffy”.

Besides the health of those two pitchers, the Mariners have other pitching issues, namely too many walks are being issued.

There were 10 walks in Friday’s split-squad game against the Diamondbacks here in Tucson, hiking the Cactus League total to 64 walks in 123 innings. Conversley, Mariners batters have walked 31 times.

That is a rotten pattern, even in the spring.

“The thing were looking at is the pitching,” Wakamatsu said. ” We can talk about the position players and having rookies out there, but we’ve walked way too many guys.”

— Jim Street

Considering the number of Minor League players manager Don Wakamatsu has relied on this spring, it was only a matter of time before the Mariners dipped below the .500 mark in the Cactus League.

Road losses to the Cubs in Mesa and Diamondbacks in Tucson on Friday the 13th left Seattle with a 6-7-1 record.

Hey,but at least the weather was stupendous in both places.

And speaking of weather — a much better subject at the moment than baseball — Mariners fans traveling to the Valley of the Sun from the Land of the Low Clouds next week are in for a treat.

Temps in the low-90s are in the forecast. How sweet is that!

Not only that, there are split-squad doubleheaders scheduled for Monday (Dodgers in Peoria and Indians in Goodyear) and Thursday (Cubs in the afternoon and Padres at night).

Among the highlights in Tucson (besides the weather):

* Third baseman Matt Tuiasosopo (whose name was throroughly botched by the PA announcer every time he stepped into the batter’s box) had two more hits and is now batting a team-best .448.

* Relievers Marwin Vega and Luis Pena eached tossed one scoreless inning after their predecessors, Jason Vargas, Justin Thomas, Chris Sneddon and Eric Hull pretty much threw batting practice.

Anthony Phillips, an 18-year-old Minor League shortstop who made the bus trip to Tucson, was one of the four extra-position players that didn’t get into the game.

And that’s a bummer.

He just returned from Mexico City where he played for South Africa in the World Baseball Classic.

I asked him if he was the youngest player in the Classic and he said South Africa had a 16-year-old on its roster.

Phillips went 1-for-4 in a loss to Cuba and 1-for-5 in a loss to Mexico.

He called the experience “awesome” but was “sad” that it ended so soon.

“I will always remember how loud the fans were,” he said. “There actually were more people at our game against Cuba than Mexico.”

South Africa were hanging in against the host team, losing by one run, before the proverbial roof caved in and they lost, 14-3.

— Jim Street

The sale of single-game tickets for the 2009 season begin on Saturday and you might want to browse right to your favorite website (that would be mariners.com, I hope) and make plans to attend games of your choice — like August 7, when the latest, greatest, Ken Griffey Jr., Bobblehead will be given away at Safeco Field.

This, of course, is a late addition to the latest collection. Previously-planned Bobblehead Nights are: Ichiro Suzuki (April 7), Felix Hernandez (May 22), Brandon Morrow (June 19), and Franklin Gutierrez (July 24). It will be the first Bobbleheads for Morrow and Gutierrez and congrats to them and I am still waiting for the first Jim Street Bobblehead Night. Could be a long wait, actually, and, as someone in the front office said: DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH! First up would be Geoff Baker Knucklehead, err, Bobblehead Night.

This is old hat stuff for Ichiro, who has been a Bobblehead fixture since his arrival to this side of the Pacific in 2001.

Besides the roster cuts made this morning, Griffey was doing a little “cutting up” himself, walking around the clubhouse with a smile on his face.

He walked into the pitchers’ dressing area and, with Erik Bedard nearby, said, “The man has no butt so it’s got to be a high hamstring.”

Now, if Junior had an injury to the same area, it would be called the “gluteus MAXimus”.

Former Mariners left fielder Phil Bradley — probably the most talented player at that position in franchise history — visited camp today, representing the Players Association. He is one of Executive Director Don Fehr’s right-hand men. Fehr, by the way, also was in camp to meet with the players.

Bradley said he was sorry to hear that my old newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, could be shutting its doors in a week.

That is a bummer, especially for such talented scribes as the Go-2 Guy and Mr. Hickey-son, as I call him.

— Jim Street

The first cuts of Spring Training occured this morning.

Bags were packed at five lockers, those being occupied the past few weeks by right-handed pitchers Josh Fields and Tracy Thorpe, catcher Israel Nunez and infielders Callix Crabbe and Oswaldo Navarro.

None of the roster cuts were unexpected, but you can be sure of seeing Fields later on this spring in a Cactus League game.

He has a tremendous upside, has been impressive, and I would be surprised if he’s not in the Major Leagues before the end of the regular season.

Of course, I remember saying the same thing about some kid name Griffey 12 years ago. Whatever happened to him?

— Jim Street

A day that started with the news that left-handed pitcher Erik Bedard was being scratched from his start because of pain in the…err, uhhh, hmmm…backside, ended with the Mariners absorbing a 9-2 loss to the Royals in Surprise.

As substitute pitchers go, right-hander Chris Jakabauskas was at the top of his game without much advance notice. He walked into the clubhouse expecting to pitch an inning or two of relief, but became the starter because of Bedard’s gluteus maximus situation.

Three innings of no-hit baseball didn’t put the player with the longest last name in camp — one letter longer than Matt Tuiasosopo — into Seattle’s projected startring rotation for the regular season, but manager Don Wakamatsu liked what he saw.

“He was impressive,” Wak said.

Catcher Jeff Clement was especially impressed with the way “Jak” went after the hitters, getting ahead in the count regularly and challenging the hitters.

The game, played under another mostly-clear Arizona afternoon sky, included two hits from designated hitter — and former Royals All-Star — Mike Sweeney.

He beat out an infield hit to deep third base in the second inning and singled sharply into right field in the third. He wasn’t supposed to run as hard as he did in his first at-bat, but he’s knows only one way to play game — hard.

Wakamatusu said Sweeney most likely would play first base in Thursday’s game against the Rangers at Peoria Stadium and Ken Griffey Jr., would handle the DH duties. It would be the first time both veterans have been in the same lineup.

Other Wednesday noteworthy events:

* Wakamatsu liked what he saw in Wladimir Balentien’s base running, citing the tag-up and advance to third base on a fly ball hit to right field.

“Those are the things we are talking about,” Wak said.

* Center fielder Franklin Gutierrez added two more hits and is now batting .417 this spring.

* On the other hand, third baseman Tuiasosopo went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts. He had hit safely in eight of his first 10 Cactus League games.

* Former Mariners Super-Sub Willie Bloomquist started at second base for the Royals, went 1-for-2 and scored a run. He’s batting .348 this spring.

The Mariners still have 63 players in camp, but that figures to be reduced by a couple of players on Thursday and several more next Monday.

— Jim Street

The cheshire grin coming from outfielder Wladimir Balentien’s face this morning said it all.

He was camping out on cloud nine inside the Mariners clubhouse, a happy camper if there ever was one. He had watched his World Baseball Classic team, The Netherlands, oust the powerful Dominican Republic in the Classic.

“I tried to contact Adrian (Beltre), but I don’t have his phone number with me so I was unable to call him. I had to wait until he got here (today). I put a couple of notes in his locker. I wrote ‘Nice game Dominicans.'”

He laughed. And laughed again.

Beltre, who wanted to play for his country again this year (he was on the Dominican Republic team in 2006) but was rebuffed by the Mariners organization because of concern with his surgically-repaired left thumb and shoulder, also watched Tuesday night’s game, won by The Netherlands, 2-1, in 11 innings.

“I am glad I wasn’t part of it because if he was, I would be really disappointed. More than I am.”

As for Balentien? He was reveling in the moment.

“And now we are ready for Venezuela” he chirped, “I want to see Ronny (Cedeno) cry, too.”

— Jim Street

Even during Spring Training, how a pitcher reacts to adversity goes a long way in determining how he might react during the regular season. A closer with a bad memory is a good thing.

Right-hander Randy Messenger has been near-perfect in his three outings, and inquiring minds wanted to know if Don Wakamatsu wants Messenger to have a rough outing one of these days.

And so we asked.

“I don’t think he’s going to have a real bad outing, just because I think you see a pretty good commitment level,” Wakamatsu said. “He’s going out and he’s attacking the (strike) zone. Even yesterday, the ball was up and it wasn’t the prettiest thing, but at least the aggressiveness was there. So I think going into his next inning he’ll focus on bringing the ball down.”

If the regular season started today, I wouldn’t be surprised if the slimmed-down-by-30-pounds Messenger would be the closer.

Meanwhile, right-hander Brandon Morrow remains a bit under the weather, but has improved.

As a diabetic, Morrow does not recover as quickly from illness, and it’s something the organization has discussed.

“Those were concerns we had when were choosing what was best for him, to close or to start,” Wakamatsu said. “If we can kind of manage his weight, and manage his recovery time being a starter, then we might be able to maximize that. We’re going down that road right now. Our biggest concern right now is where he’s going to be opening the season.”

— Jim Street  

Less than a month remains in Spring Training, and I’m getting a little concerned about catcher/designated hitter Jeff Clement.

The Mariners are giving him a golden opportunity — a job in the Major Leagues this season — and he’s not exactly grabbing the bull by the horns as Dizzy Dean used to say.

Going into today’s game against the Dodgers, Clement was batting .000. No hits in 11 official at-bats. He had two walks, two strikeouts and struck out swinging in his first two at-bats today, making him 0-for-13. But the hit famine ended in the sixth inning when he laced a line drive single into center field.

Maybe that hit will get him going.

This has not the sort of start to Spring Training the former first-round Draft choice (third overall) had in mind. And frankly neither did the organization.

There are jobs to be won here — and some jobs could also be lost.

— Jim Street

Manager Don Wakamatsu just finished with is daily pre-workout media session on Field 1.

During the seven minute, 19-second session under a bright blue Arizona sky, he said right-handed pitcher Brandon Morrow is still ill and probably will miss the workout, and two players, in particular, have caught his eye this spring.

“The biggest (surprise) in the bullpen is (Randy) Messenger,” he said. “I have been real pleased with the way he has thrown the ball. I also am pleased with Ronny Cedeno.”

Messenger, released and re-signed last month, has logged 2 1/3 scoreless innings and shares the Cactus League lead with two saves. And Cedeno, the likely utility player this season, is 6-for-18 with the bat and solid with the glove. His six hits are second on the team to Matt Tuiasosopo’s eight hits and — for my money — also ranks among the camp’s most pleasant surprises.

As for Messenger, he wasn’t considered a closer candidate when camp opened, but he’s moving in that direction as no one else has really stepped forward, although it’s still early.

The starting lineups for today’s game against the Dodgers were just delivered to us media types by Amber the Intern and Manny Ramirez is not in the Dodgers lineup. Bummer.

However, since the Dodgers don’t have nearly as many of their 40-man roster players competing in the World Baseball Classic, their starters today include regulars Rafael Furcal (SS), Orlando Hudson (2B), Andre Ethier (RF), Casey Blake (DH) and James Loney (1B).

Seattle’s lineup includes projected regular-season starter Adrian Beltre at third base, Mike Sweeney in the DH spot and. . .err…uhhh…hmmm.

— Jim Street