"It can't be a bad spring when you haven't yet had a hit but your on-base percentage is .478.

Chone Figgins was having that kind of spring until Friday, when he banged a two-run triple against the Kansas City Royals for his first hit of spring. He didn't feel he had a choice.

"(Ken Griffey) Junior got his first hit earlier in the game, and I knew if I didn't get one too I'd hear about it," Figgins said. "Now I feel part of the team."

In his first five games, Figgins didn't have a hit but walked seven times in 16 plate appearances and scored four times. The Mariners could probably live with that OBP even if Figgins never hit.

"He's just a focused hitter, a patient hitter," manager Don Wakamatsu said. "I love him hitting behind Ichiro, and I like playing them together in spring games."

Ichiro and Figgins have become close in the past few weeks, and when someone asked Figgins if he were going to Tucson for the Sunday-Monday Mariners road trip, he turned and asked Ichiro."