Expectations were that Mike Carp would get another chance soon, but it won’t come at Jack Cust’s expense. The Mariners demoted Carlos Peguero to Triple-A to make room for Carp after Sunday’s loss to the Rangers.
The struggling Seattle offense totaled just two runs while the team was swept by the Rangers in a four-game series.
Cust played only once in the series, going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in Friday’s loss. He’s 1-for-16 with nine strikeouts and three walks during July. For the season as a whole, his OBP stands at .348, easily the high mark of anyone who has spent the whole season with Seattle. However, he’s hitting just .207 with three homers and 23 RBI in 208 at-bats. Even with the solid OBP, he’s scored a total of 17 runs.
Peguero was way overmatched at the major league level, even if he did manage to hit six homers in 143 at-bats. He had a .196 average and a 54/8 K/BB ratio in 143 at-bats.
Carp, a natural first baseman, has seen most of his playing time in left field this year, but the Mariners chose Peguero over him last month because of his issues defensively. He’d seem to be the natural replacement in the DH slot for Cust. However, since the Mariners aren’t giving up on Cust yet, he’ll instead battle Greg Halman for playing time in left field.
Carp was hitting .341/.410/.651 with 21 homers and 64 RBI in 65 games for Triple-A Tacoma. He went 7-for-35 with no RBI in his time with the Mariners last month.
