Three pitchers cut, plus today’s lineup

Philipe Valiquette was among three pitchers re-assigned to the Minor League camp on Friday. (Greg Johns/MLB.com)

With so many players in camp, it’s only a matter of time before the cuts start coming. And the Mariners moved three pitchers today, re-assigning left-handers Steve Garrison and Philippe Valiquette and right-hander Jarrett Grube to Minor League camp.

The club had already assigned right-hander Stephen Pryor to Minor League camp when he returned from a week-long leave to deal with a family situation.

Along with the retirement of Carlos Guillen, the original 67-man roster now is down to 62. That includes 40 roster players and 22 non-roster invitees.

Expect more cuts to come in the next few days. The Mariners have a split-squad day Saturday and need extra players there, but presumably will thin the herd a bit after that in order to begin giving the regulars more playing time as the season approaches.

Here’s the lineup for today’s 12:05 p.m. PT game against the D-backs in Peoria Stadium:

Chone Figgins 3B
Brendan Ryan SS
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Mike Carp LF
Casper Wells CF
Carlos Peguero DH
Alex Liddi 1B
John Jaso C
Munenori Kawasaki 2B

Jason Vargas LHP

Peguero and his big bat continue getting a long look and Wells is back in center field today, where the audition to fill in for Franklin Gutierrez continues playing out. And Kawasaki is certainly getting a chance to show what he can do, with Eric Wedge talking yesterday about how he can help the club with his situational hitting ability and baseball smarts.