Mariners Game #3 Preview, 4/1/23: CLE at SEA

Last night was our first “baseball’s like that” of the year, and it’s good to get those firsts out of the way early. Moving on to tonight, we should expect a more favorable outcome just by looking at the pitching matchup. But first, lineups!

Tonight’s Lineup:

Tommy La Stella is DHing again tonight just like on opening day, giving Cooper Hummel the day off. Same for Cal, who’s going to be on the bench while Tom Murphy catches. Slightly unusual since Cal normally catches LoGi. Scott is up to his usual lefty-righty shenanigans though, with at least 1 lefty in every third of the lineup.

It’ll be fun to watch Logan tonight, especially to see what he does with his new splitter. Pitching for the Cleveland Guardians, on the other hand, is Aaron Civale, who may struggle against the M’s lineup. His career K/9 is only 7.95, and that’s with an career best year in 2022. He’s also 28th percentile in HardHit% so look for some smoked line drives tonight.

Speaking of hard hit balls, Cal’s double last night was at 111.7 mph, the hardest-hit ball in MLB yesterday.

News:

• Robbie Ray has been placed on the 15-day IL with a flexor strain. Chris Flexen will fill his spot in the rotation, and Gabe Speier has been called up to join Seattle’s bullpen in the meantime. If you’d like to read more about Gabe, Becca did a great write-up of him here.

Scott’s Pregame Notes:

• Scott specified that Robbie’s soreness is in his forearm, and say that he’ll be down “for a couple weeks and hopefully good to go after that.” Scott did say that it’s grade 1, which is good news.
• Scott also said that Logan has been dominant and the next step is for him to keep control of his pitch count to go deep into games. Scott said the main thing is doing away with uncompetitive misses and making sure every pitch has a purpose.
• Finally, Scott praised the fans for another sellout crowd, while joking that he’s sad that the T-Mobile crew only have so many Julio bobbleheads and that he probably can’t get one.

Tonight’s game information:

Plenty of ways to keep up with the game tonight. It’ll be on ROOT Sports with Dave Sims and Mike Blowers on the call. Rick Rizzs and Aarons Goldsmith will be live on Seattle Sports 710 AM. And finally, the game will also be on FS1 with Adam Amin and Eric Karros calling it for a national audience.

Today is Mariners History (April 1):

• 1982 – The Mariners trade left-handed pitcher Shane Rawley to New York (AL) for pitchers Bill Caudill, Gene Nelson and outfielder Bobby Brown.
• 1984 – Rookie Phil Bradley’s one-out single in the bottom of the 10^th inning scores Spike Owen from second as the Mariners top the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-2, before an Opening Night crowd of 43,000.
• 1997 – Ken Griffey Jr. homers in his first two at bats of the season (both off David Cone) in a 4-2, opening night win over the Yankees.
• 1998 – David Segui enjoys his first two-home run game, and becomes the second Mariner to homer from both sides of the plate in the same game in a 9-7 loss vs. Cleveland (also: Larry Milbourne, July 15, 1978).
• 2011 – Felix Hernandez threw the first 9.0 inning complete game in Mariners Opening Day history at Oakland. After allowing a 2-run home run in the first inning, retired 23 of the next 26 batters he faced. Was the first Opening Day CG since Ben Sheets in 2007 and first 9.0-inning CG by an AL pitcher since Bartolo Colon in 2002.
• 2013 – Felix Hernandez struck out 8 and allowed just 3 hits in 7.2 scoreless innings as the Mariners recorded their 7th straight Opening Day victory in a 2-0 win over the A’s in Oakland. It was the third shutout in Mariners Opening Day history (also: 2011, 1995).
• 2014 – Brad Miller hit a pair of home runs in the Mariners 8-3 win over the Angels. It was the 4^th multi-HR game for Miller, in just his 78^th career game. Became the third player in MLB history to record as many as four multi-homer games in the first 80 games of a career, joining Bob Horner and Jason Bay. Justin Smoak also had a three-run double in the win to improve the Mariners to 2-0 on the season.
• 2021 – Mariners come back from 5 runs to beat the Giants 8-7 on opening day. Mariners won on a bases loaded walk by Jake Fraley. Mitch Haniger started in right field, his first game since 6/6/19 (665 days).