Mariner Talk Chat Forum

Donn Beach wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2024 7:06 pm

. “It’s funny. Throughout my whole career I never put as much emphasis on my catching as I do now,” Garver said. “I always used to be a bat-first catcher, and now when I am catching the hitting is so secondary to me. My at-bats are what they are, I just go up there and try to do something. Really my priority is taking care of the pitchers. For the first time in my career, I feel like that has flipped, which is kind of strange.”

The work behind the plate was perhaps a very needed distraction from what he did at the plate.

“It’s more important to take care of those guys,” Garver said. “It’s something I did in the past, but not to the level I am doing now. I’m putting a lot of emphasis on trying to be creative with them in between innings, a lot of communication, a lot of changing up approaches if we need to in the game, a lot of strategy during the game.”

. “They were just the frontrunner. This was the team that wanted me the most,” Garver said. “And they made it very clear that I would mean something to this organization, that I would be coming to the lineup as a leader, as a DH mostly, and be able to contribute on the catching game-calling side of the ball. So they were just very adamant about having me. There were a few other teams, but it was very clear that I was going to be a Mariner.”

. “It’s quite the adjustment, but I find ways to fill my time. I will study pitchers, study opposing hitters, try to game plan for the future,” he said. “And I’m always watching whoever’s catching that day, so Cal, for instance, I’ll be watching him, watching how he’s calling the game and I’ll be involved in the discussions when it comes in between innings. I fill my time with other things like flicking seeds at guys and dropping a cup of water on somebody’s foot. All that fun stuff.”

. “I think that’s the key. And that’s something that the front office and I talked about when I was deciding to sign here was like, ‘We need to keep you in the lineup. If we can just extrapolate the numbers and get you a sample size of 500 at-bats, who knows what the numbers could be?’ I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I’ve never done it before. I’m just trying to really take care of my body this year. And we’ll see where the catching part goes because it seems I always get hurt when I catch and obviously it’s a very dangerous position. The more I can stay in the lineup, I think I can contribute to the team a little bit more and put myself in an opportunity to have success.”

roosevelt wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2024 9:36 pm

The division sucks!

seattlefan-daBronx wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2024 10:14 pm

So nice to watch baseball at a decent hour for Christ's sake!

GL_Storm wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 19, 2024 10:14 pm

So now they're paying 12 million for a backup catcher.