Powell hopes to awaken slumbering Seattle offense

SEATTLE - No one expects new Seattle Mariners hitting coach Alonzo Powell to make an immediate difference.

But his charge is simple: help wake up the Mariners' slumbering bats and don't take long in doing so.

"We've had several games where one hit would have changed the outcome and that's the unfortunate thing," Seattle manager Don Wakamatsu said. "We've talked about the only way we know is continue to work and get better. Obviously we've looked at a lot of different things but you look at some guys who are hitting well below their career averages and a change sometimes or just a different voice could help that and that's what we're looking for."

Powell became Seattle's new hitting coach on Sunday when Alan Cockrell was fired for the Mariners' horrid offensive start. They began Sunday with the worst offense in the American League and only moved out of the basement thanks to 12 hits and eight runs in an 8-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels that snapped an eight-game losing streak.

The Mariners have a batting order with eight active players hitting under .225 and a team average of just .229. Seattle's also last in baseball in home runs (12) and next-to-last in slugging percentage.

The lack of offense is the main reason Seattle sits just 12-19 despite a pitching staff that ranks sixth in baseball with a 3.58 ERA.

Powell's job is to try to unlock bats that have become handcuffed for the first month of the season. Chone Figgins, a career .291 hitter, is scuffling at just .185. Jose Lopez is batting just .229, first baseman Casey Kotchman is hitting .194, and the catcher combo of Rob Johnson and Adam Moore is stuck at .155.

Perhaps most damaging to Seattle's offense is the lack of designated hitter production. Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Sweeney are a combined .198 with no homers and eight RBIs. Of Seattle hitters with at least 45 at-bats, only Ichiro Suzuki (.326), Franklin Gutierrez (.322) and Jack Wilson (.253) are hitting above .250.

"We are the ones stinking up the place. We have to just go out there and do it," Sweeney said. "We have the manpower to be better than we are. Are we going to score 12 runs a game like the Texas Rangers? Probably not. But we have the ability to rack up some runs every night and we haven't done that."

Seattle was never expected to be an offensive force. The bats, and a noticeable lack of pop, were the big questions entering the season. General manager Jack Zduriencik said last week he was already working the phones to look for a possible offensive solution.

In the short-term, the solution is Powell. He was in his third season as the hitting coach at Triple-A Tacoma, working with a number of current Mariners. That familiarity was important in the decision to promote Powell.

"He works his tail off. One of the things, while I was down in Tacoma, he was there really early every day. You couldn't beat him to the cage, and he was always ready to go hit," Seattle outfielder Ryan Langerhans said.

Those who worked with him in the minors characterize the former journeyman, who spent 19 seasons playing professionally and won three straight batting titles in Japan in the mid-1990s, as a tireless worker who keeps the approach to hitting simple.