The Mariners are hoping to get injured starter Emerson Hancock back this season, but it might not be in the role he\u2019s played so far this year as one of the steadiest hands in a shaky rotation.<\/p>\n
Hancock, who hadn\u2019t thrown off a mound in 10 days, threw a bullpen yesterday at what he called \u201cnormal midweek intensity,\u201d meaning not 100% effort, although he did throw his complete pitch mix. Even at the throttled-down effort, manager Dan Wilson said he was still feeling the effects of his adductor strain \u201coccasionally.\u201d Hancock, who said he felt \u201call right\u201d after the session, said the issue is with his landing leg or plant leg; as he strides down the mound with his left leg, that\u2019s where he can feel the pain in his adductor, which is the muscle group that runs along the inner thigh. But he doesn\u2019t feel the pain every time, and although he says he\u2019s feeling better and progressing, occasionally the pain still crops up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to feel like. When you\u2019re throwing, when you\u2019re talking about landing leg, you don\u2019t really know what it\u2019s going to do when you put all that force on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a day-to-day thing,\u201d said Hancock. \u201cSo we\u2019ll just see how we feel tomorrow, and try to do everything we can to keep building this thing up, and hopefully get a chance to come back and pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everything we\u2019ve done up to this point has been very very productive\u2026But I have to make sure that I\u2019m also putting our position in a good position to win, as well. So we\u2019re just continuing to work towards that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hancock, who has been on the IL since August 29, would be eligible to return on September 13, in time for the series finale against the Athletics. But he needs at least one more bullpen session before he could return, and then will need to build back after sitting out for two weeks. Manager Dan Wilson didn\u2019t discount the possibility of a move to the bullpen for Hancock for the remainder of the season, which would both get him back to the field more quickly and limit his innings and therefore the stress on his sore muscle.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything\u2019s possible,\u201d said Wilson. \u201cWe\u2019re making sure that he\u2019s healthy first for sure, and then we\u2019ll look at understanding how to plug him in and how to get him back, either into the rotation or in a different role. But we\u2019ve got to get him healthy first.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, Hancock, the ultimate team player, is obviously disappointed to have landed on the IL after such a breakout season, but is staying focused on what he can do to help out the team in these last few games.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s not about me. There\u2019s been some good and there\u2019s been some bad, just personally. I love competing and I love being with our team, but also, as you\u2019re working through the rehab process, you have to make sure that you\u2019re in a good position to give your team the best chance to win. That\u2019s the focus. So every day from here on out, it\u2019s like, how can we be able to get to that point?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mariners are hoping to get injured starter Emerson Hancock back this season, but it might not be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,329591,85],"class_list":["post-887936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-seattle-mariners-injuries","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}