Three wins in a row is pretty neat.
There is a time and a place for a reasonable, measured approach. For restraint, for quiet and patient contemplation, measured appropriately in stakes against the subject being contemplated. I like to think that when it matters most, I know when to apply this approach. After all, there is already so much making something out of nothing in the world of baseball writing, why add to the pile?
Well, sometimes you do it because you can, or in less formal parlance, for the “lulz”. It’s spring training. Let’s have some fun. The Seattle Mariners beat the Los Angeles Dodgers today 11-5, and hey, it was fun.
A man with greasy, slicked back hair, wearing a black suit and dark sunglasses comes in and hands Bee a slip of paper, then quietly leaves.
Oh sorry, this is where I’m supposed to insert some obligatory message about it being spring training and none of this mattering. Moving on.
How cool is it that the Mariners scored eleven runs today? Better yet, how cool is it they scored double digit runs four days in a row? What’s cooler than being cool? Ice cold. Seattle didn’t have the double digit hits of the last three games, getting those eleven runs on eight hits today, but they did manage to keep the strikeout total in the single digit column, the team number also at eight on the day. They also collected six walks. No player collected multiple hits on the day, unsurprising in early spring lineup turnover, but even still their sequencing proved pesky.
Opposing starter pitcher Blake Snell only lasted until the end of the first, facing four Mariners hitters, but needing 30 pitches to do so. J.P. Crawford started things off with a nine pitch battle, but ended in a ground-out, and Julio Rodríguez next struck out swinging on five pitches. Randy Arozarena broke up the outs, working Snell to a 2-2 count then grounding the eighth pitch hard (104.3 mph) into center field for a single. Mitch Garver capped off the inning with a ground-out, but worked the count full before doing that on the eighth pitch.
Luis Castillo needed almost half as many pitches to get through his debut inning, but faced two more batters and didn’t get through clean, giving up one run. Mookie Betts immediately got the Dodgers offense going with a hard liner (104.4 mph) to left field and reaching first. Tommy Edman hit an infield grounder and swapped with Betts at first. There was an opportunity for Castillo to get out of the inning with a double play when Michael Conforto hit a grounder to Bliss, but Bliss pitched it low to Crawford covering second, and it just rolled through J.P.’s glove into the outfield, Edman getting to third on the play and Conforto safe at first. Enrique Hernández flew out to Williamson at third, and Castillo was theoretically one out away from getting out of the inning. But alas, the defensive shenanigans were not yet over. Miguel Rojas hit it to Crawford, who threw it wide to second pulling Bliss off of the bag allowing Edman to score and Conforto and Rojas to be safe at second and first base, respectively. Finally La Piedra escaped the first getting Eddie Rosario to ground out, and ended the inning at eighteen pitches.
Before Castillo would pitch the second inning, the Mariners had one of their big hitting innings in the top half, against Carson Hobbs. Tyler Locklear quickly grounded out, but Ryan Bliss followed it up by attacking first pitch hitting a grounder into right field for a single. While Dominic Canzone was batting Ryan Bliss stole second base, and Canzone went on to draw a 4-1 walk. With Ben Williamson batting next, Bliss went to steal third, and maybe would have been tagged out but the ball veered off into foul territory, Bliss was able to score and with the ball going out of play into the dugout, Canzone was now at third. Williamson worked it 2-2 before finding a middle fastball and sending it right up center field for an RBI single.
In the last game I summarized, spring NRI player Williamson won the Sun Visor Award for a couple of RBI base hits and some heads up base-running. However the hits were very soft contact, and I was hoping in future at bats we would see more solid results. This hit certainly obliged, coming off the bat at 111.9 mph. Cole Young almost hit it into left field but a diving Hernández was able to stop it with his glove but not catch it, and Young was safe at first with Williamson to third. Crawford flew out on a 2-2 sixth pitch curve ball down low, and up next came Julio, ready to put a cap on the hitting of the inning. Sitting on a cutter nowhere near the zone for the first pitch, he pounced on the next one that caught far too much of it, sending the 93.9 mph fastball soaring 112.4 mph into the right field gap for a double scoring both runners.
With the highest recorded exit velo of the night that clutch RBI double earns Julio Rodríguez the Sun Visor Award for today’s game. It was also the hit that finally convinced Los Angeles to pull Carson Hobbs, swapping him for Ben Casparius. Arozarena would come up next in the inning, and work a full count before he laid down an easy grounder for out three.
Luis Castillo had a slightly less eventful second go, not giving up a run this time. He allowed a single to James Outman, who also managed to swipe second base, and gave up a walk to Mookie Betts on a 3-1 count, but escaped free of damage with a couple of fly outs and getting Ryan Ward to strike out swinging.
Mitch Garver started out the third by taking a 2-2 fastball from Casparius deep to right field, just clearing the fence but traveling 103.2 mph off the bat to get there.
Seattle would be toothless from that point on until the seventh, except for a lone Harry Ford single in the fifth, a 106.4 mph line drive to left off of Justin Wrobleski. In the seventh when the Mariners would do the rest of their scoring, they would start doing so against Dodger pitcher Julian Fernández. Nick Raposo started things out with a pop up, and next Colt Emerson started the fun but much in the way you have to wait in line for a roller coaster by which I mean patience, beginning the bat 2-0 and then eventually working it full, and drawing the walk. With Tai Peete up to bat next, Emerson was able to steal second base. When Peete took the fourth pitch for a 4-0 walk, Emerson also stole third. Samad Taylor found a fastball at the top of the zone and lined it to left, scoring both runners and Taylor reaching second safely, but he wouldn’t stay there for long.
After Harry Ford took first base being hit by a pitch, and with Charlie Pagliarini batting, Taylor and Ford pulled off a double steal, making for the fourth and fifth Mariners steals of the inning. After working a full count, the batter with a name that terrifies me to attempt to type every time, drew a walk and loaded the bases. This was enough for L.A. to make the change from Fernández to Ronan Kopp.
Kopp immediately couldn’t find the zone, walking Brock Rodden on four pitches and allowing Taylor to score. He found the zone for an 0-2 lead against Cade Marlowe up next, but then quickly lost it again and walked Marlowe on the next four pitches, nowhere near the zone, this time scoring Ford. Luis Suisbel came up to bat, and sticking to theme Kopp threw a wild pitch that let Paliarini score and Rodden and Marlowe move up to third and second. Suisbel would ground out, but Rodden scored on the play. Then Seattle’s last scoring inning ended where it began, with Nick Raposo, this time striking out looking on three pitches.
The rest of the Dodgers scoring came in the bottoms of the third and ninth innings. In the third they did the damage against Will Klein. Enrique Hernández reached when Julio got a late start on his route on a play with a floating liner in somewhat shallow center, and needing to slide on reaching the ball he wasn’t able to glove it. Miguel Rojas then found the right field gap for the RBI double. A couple batters later, Austin Barnes did almost the exact same thing, hitting it just as hard to right field for an RBI double.
In the ninth L.A. did their work against Brock Moore, who gave up walks to the first batters, both on 3-1 counts. Moore recovered enough to get Alex Freeland and Hyeseong Kim to strike out, but quickly un-recovered with a wild pitch with Chris Okey batting that moved up the runners, only to then hit Okey with a pitch and load them up anyways. Yorlin Calderon came in and inherited the mess, and in a way you could say helped clean it up, from a certain perspective, by letting Kody Hoese hit a double on a grounder to left that scored two. Calderon finished it up but actually with the next batter, getting Austin Gauthier to ground out to end the game.
Both teams had some big innings, but in the middle of this game was defined by the efficiency of the relief arms. Drew Pomeranz, Jesse Hahn, Austin Kitchen, and Juan Burgos all were Mariners pitchers who faced the minimum today. Jesse Hahn’s inning was of note for Hahn’s effective use of his curveball, using it to get Hernández to swing under it for a strikeout, and Lockwood-Powell to pop out. Hahn also struck out Michael Conforto on a 1-2 fastball.
Today was another game where it was hard to pick a Sun Visor Award, because it genuinely packed with a lot. Sure, draw little to no conclusions from them as you please, but one trend is becoming abundantly clear as we reach further into the spring campaign. Much of the Mariners system, from the 40 man to it’s well regarded farm prospects, are bringing the energy, and seem ready to compete. Even if this part is just for fun and practice, I’m excited to continue to watch these spring flowers bloom.