Well, a cool morning is starting to turn warm as the sun breaking through the clouds at times and a warm day in the 70s is expected.

We had an ambulance and fire truck at the complex after a health scare. It wasn't one of the players, instead it was Class AA pitching coach Scott Budner, who was complaining about extreme lower back pain that made it difficult to walk, according to Mariners media director Tim Hevly. The ambulance was precautionary and the early prognosis was that it was nothing too serious and that Budner was being transported to Arrowhead Hospital for observation.

After a couple of meetings, we met with John McLaren for the morning briefing. It's a standard deal every day in spring.

A few things from it ....

* He mentioned that he has his five starters chosen, which wasn't really a surprise. As we said yesterday, Erik Bedard is the No. 1, Felix Hernandez is No. 2, and that leaves the three spots to Jarrod Washburn, Miguel Batista and Carlos Silva. Now in what order those three will go has yet to be determined.

They could drop Washburn, who was No. 2 last year to No.3, so they go left-right-left at the top of the rotation. But both Batista and Silva are sinkerballer pitchers so they may also want to split them up. Batista is coming off his best season in years, while the Mariners did pay Silva a pretty healthy sum of money, enough to where they wouldn't like to see his starts skipped as the No. 5

If you were McLaren what would you do?

* McLaren said that Morrow's role would be the seventh and eighth inning guy in the prepping to be a starter, his pitch count and arm strength are up and McLaren is comfortable using him for two-innings or on back-to-back days.

* Also if catcher Jeff Clement doesn't win a starting job at catcher or DH, he's ticketed for Tacoma. McLaren feels that Clement's potential is far too great to have him sitting on the bench in Seattle rather than playing every day in Tacoma. He also said that there are no plans to move Clement to another position -- say first base.

Clement and some of the other catchers were trying on and playing with a fast-pitch softball catchers mitt in preparation for catching knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. It's the same type of glove that Red Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli uses to catch Tim Wakefield.

* It also appears that Eric O'Flaherty leads the competition to replace George Sherrill in the lefthanded specialist out of the bullpen. Fellow lefties Ryan Rowland-Smith, Cesar Jimenez and Arthur Rhodes will all compete. Rhodes will have to wait a little, since he's still recovering from Tommy John surgery.

* The signing of Greg Norton was something that McLaren was all for, having coached him in Venezuela and against him over the years. Besides being a switch-hitter, Norton can play a handful of positions, including first and third base, and is a good pinch hitter with some pop.