Rainiers’ starting pitcher Chris Seddon wasn’t originally scheduled to go to this year’s Triple-A all-star game. In the end, although he was named as a replacement player on the team, he didn’t play. That’s because he was called up to the Mariners before the game.

So, like Bucky Jacobsen before him, he just watched the game from the dugout at Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, home of the International League’s Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs.

    (Jacobsen, who is now a color announcer for the Rainiers, played with the team in 2004-2005. Chosen as an all star in 2004, he got his first Major League call-up the night before.)

    Luke French, also a starting pitcher for the Rainiers, was named the team’s original all-star representative. However, French was called up to the Mariners on July 9, so he was replaced by Seddon. Then French was sent back to Tacoma on July 10, but was no longer eligible for the game.

    Rainiers’ manager Daren Brown, who was chosen to be the Pacific Coast League team’s manager, had said earlier that if he could pick someone else from the team to go to Lehigh Valley, Seddon would definitely be a choice, although the replacements are not picked by the managers, but by the league office personnel based on voting  and statistics.

    Seddon started the game at Cheney Stadium on July 11. So he would be in shape for the all star game, he pitched only four innings. At the break, he was tied for the PCL lead in wins (10) and complete games (2).

    “My wife Shiloh and I had planned to spend the three-day break at Lake Tahoe,” Seddon said. “So we cancelled those tickets and got her a ticket to the game in Pennsylvania.”

    After the Rainiers’ game, the Seddons traveled from Tacoma to Pennsylvania, 2,400 miles. Following the lunch on July 14, Brown told Seddon that the Mariners needed him to pitch out of the bullpen following the all-star break. Because they wanted a fresh arm, Seddon would not appear in the Triple-A game, except during the introductions. Otherwise, all Rainiers fans saw of him during the broadcast on the MLB Network was a shot of him walking through the dugout during the interview of PCL President Branch Rickey.

    After the game he didn’t pitch in, Seddon and his wife got on another plane and headed off to meet the Mariners in Anaheim. It didn’t take long for him to pitch there. He was called in to replace starter Ryan Rowland-Smith on July 17. Seddon went one and 2/3 perfect innings, throwing just 13 pitches, nine of them for strikes. He got out all five batters he faced. He said he expects to pitch mostly out of the bullpen for the foreseeable future.

    This time his fans in the Pacific Northwest did get to see him on TV. He also had a lot of fans in the stands. Both the Seddons grew up in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. “I had a lot of names on my pass list,” he said.

    Seddon, who came up through the Tampa Bay Rays’ system, spent six seasons with their minor league teams (2001-2007). He was claimed off waivers by the Florida Marlins in June 2007 and made his major-league debut Sept. 3. He said that year he knew no one when he got to the big-league club, but when he got to Anaheim it was like old-home week because there were lots of players he knew from their time together on the Rainiers.

    This wasn’t Seddon’s first trip to a Triple-A All Star game. In 2008, he was chosen to go to Louisville, where as a member of the Albuquerque Isotopes he pitched one perfect inning of relief.

Rainiers’ Notes: Outfielder Greg Halman hit three home runs in the first four games following the all-star break. Two came in the game against Reno on Sunday, July 18. He now is tied for second in the PCL with 22.

    Infielder Dustin Ackley was called up from Double-A on July 14. His first game with the Rainiers was in Reno on July 15. On the second pitch he saw, Ackley hit a home run. Ackley was the Mariners’ first-round draft pick, second pick overall, in the 2009 draft.