Men 1-9 and Men X combine for a great afternoon of ball.
In a showdown of both Cleveland and Seattle’s likely opening day matchups, it was Seattle’s starters who shown early, before a collection of passed over prospects and non-roster invite tease slug it out late and saw the Mariners ultimately walked off on an error by the Guardians.
Most impressive on this afternoon, where the M‘s had to juggle their lineups and rosters slightly to compensate for the rain out on Thursday, was the performance of Emerson Hancock. The young righty has been surpassed by other members of the pitching development cohort he came up in, but all spring, and this evening in particular, Hughes offered encouraging reminders of the higher level of talent he’s capable of. Holding his velocity all afternoon, working deeper into the game, Hancock. Well enough to steam me a full lineup of big leaguers. He helped his own cause as well with glistening glove work, alongside a healthy mixture of pitches.
With his tidy work, Seattle’s offense was able to build up a 5-0 lead at one point. Jorge Polanco looked sharp, as did Cal Raleigh, as the switch hitting veterans lashed line drives on a few pieces of good contact throughout the afternoon. Much of the M’s offense was in fair form or better, to be frank. Julio Rodríguez continued his strong spring, with his swing once more seeming under control, lacking the occasional toppling over the plate that accompanied his boom or bust, stretches in recent years.
Even the more box score-neutral actions had positive spins, like that Victor Robles stung the ball sharply but just right at Lane Thomas, while Ryan Bliss’ error he reached on was an error due to stinging it into the 5-6 hole for what would’ve taken an extremely skilled play to be made. Luke Raley even doubled off a lefty!
So by the time Jesse Hahn relieved Hancock in the 5th and turned a 5-0 lead into a 5-3 game, concerns were not significant. The only troubling appearance of the day, indeed, was that of LHP Gabe Speier, whose fastball was in the 93-94 range more than the sitting 95 zone that helped him excel in 2023. It wasn’t vastly off, but a 93 mph cookie was tagged by Will Brennan to emphasize the line for error was drawn down the middle, at the belt. In the zone this afternoon, Brennan also took a four-bag vacation off Collin Snider, whose whelm-o-meter this spring is teetering.
The throwaway in the 9th to give the Guardians a mirrored 8-7 victory to the end result of the subsequent Spring Breakout was a neat coincidence, an amusing capper on what was the most compelling and intriguing day of spring training thus far.