JETHAWKS NOTEBOOK: WOOTEN MAKES QUICK PROGRESS : VELOCITY IMPROVES FOR RIGHT-HANDER.

Byline: Chris Cocoles Daily News Staff Writer

The Seattle Mariners want Greg Wooten to take his game back to the 90's.

Though the JetHawks pitcher remained in an 80's timewarp Tuesday night, the right-hander made a quantum leap.

The radar gun showed much more progress than Wooten's seven-inning stint in a 10-3 JetHawks victory at Lake Elsinore.

Listed as the organization's No. 9 prospect in Baseball America this winter, Wooten, 24, suffered a significant speed drop in his fastball during spring training and was demoted to the Lancaster workout group a few days before breaking camp.

``From what I've heard he was throwing 91 (mph), topping out at like 92-93 with his fastball,'' said JetHawks pitching coach Jim Slaton. ``He wasn't doing anywhere close to that (in Arizona).''

``I felt fine at the beginning of spring training, but I started getting tired,'' said the 6-foot-7 Wooten, who went 7-1 as a JetHawk the first-half of 1996 and was an 11-game winner at Double-A Memphis last year.

The same April day he was sent down from Double-A, his arm was examined and Wooten was shut down.

``It wasn't anything sudden. It was kind of a gradual thing,'' Wooten said of his arm problems. ``I started to have a dead arm.''

The Eugene, Ore., native joined the JetHawks on June 4. In two previous starts, he was 0-1 with a 12.27 earned run average.

While he allowed just six hits and two earned runs in seven innings Tuesday, Slaton was more pleased reading Wooten's chart.

``We're more concerned with his velocity right now,'' Slaton said when asked about Wooten's previous outing, when he allowed eight earned runs in 3-1/3 innings.

``The last time he was up at 75 pitches and he wasn't throwing hard. Tonight he threw 85 and towards the end his velocity hadn't dropped.''

Wooten averaged 87 on the gun, but he registered several 88's and 89's with his fastball.

``I'm not going to push it. It did feel like I was almost where I was with my velocity. I was still throwing hard at the end,'' Wooten said. ``I was topping at 92 before but I've been down to like 88. That's very frustrating to me.''

Revenge is sweet: JetHawks manager Rick Burleson reminded his team who they were facing Tuesday night.

``I didn't really have to mention it,'' Burleson said. ``They knew.''

Storm pitcher Brian Tokarse, a ho-hum 7-6 with a 5.91 ERA overall but 3-0, 2.01 against the JetHawks, couldn't land any blows on what had been his personal punching bag.

The JetHawks ended his night early, scoring eight times in just 3-1/3 innings against a right-hander who had owned them with his money pitch, a nasty sinker that had induced consistent groundball outs.

``He's a good sinkerball pitcher. If we helped by swinging at pitches low in the strike zone, he would be very tough on us,'' Burleson said. ``But I told them if we show some patience and make him throw the ball over the plate, we'd be successful.''

The first six hitters Tokarse faced to begin the game reached base during a four-run first inning. Karl Thompson led off a two-run second with a single, Brendan Kingman opened a run-scoring third with one of the JetHawks' four triples and Thompson's leadoff double and subsequent run in the fourth led to Tokarse's exit.

``We knew this guy had three wins against us. Most of the good pitches he throws are down in the strike zone so we waited for him to throw a good pitch,'' said right fielder Jayson Bass, whose three-run triple in the first put Tokarse in an early deficit.

Left fielder Luis Tinoco singled in both of his at-bats against Tokarse.

``He threw just one sinker to me. I was looking for fastballs,'' said Tinoco, who went 3 for 5 with two RBI for the game. ``He got ripped this time.''

Split them up: Modesto pitchers Tim Manwiller and Jason Anderson are finally being split up in a sense.

The A's two California League All-Star game pitchers are still Modesto roommates. The former Radford University Highlanders teammates will pitch in the current three-game series against the JetHawks.

The difference this time around is they'll throw on opposite days, Anderson today and Manwiller in Friday night's series finale.

With the Oakland A's dumping Modesto's tandem rotation format, Anderson (4-1, 3.36) and Manwiller (8-4, 2.71) won't have to worry about following each other every five days, each alternating as starter and reliever.

``We hate it,'' Manwiller said of the now defunct two-man starting rotation. ``It's really hard to find your rhythm starting some days and relieving some others.''

While the duo combined to throw six shutout innings at the JetHawks on the final day of the first half in Modesto, their last appearance together in Lancaster wasn't so rosy.

Anderson went four innings, yielding three runs (two earned) on five hits, while Manwiller was the losing pitcher despite allowing four unearned runs in three innings in the JetHawks' 9-3 victory on June 5.