Today marked the beginning of March Madness, a time spent celebrating Spring Training baseball, right? Maybe not. Anyways, while you all were watching Middle Tennessee State upset the Gophers from Minnesota, a few professional athletes from a team you are actually invested in played a game today.
That’s right, your Seattle Mariners took on the Kansas City Royals, who had a familiar face on the hill in Jason Vargas. The M’s used the “death by a thousand cuts” strategy, putting a ton of balls in play and reaping the benefits offensively. In fact, the Royals didn’t record a strikeout until the final out of the fifth inning.
The Mariners capitalized early on spotty fielding from the Royals; three errors in two innings, one of which came with the bases loaded and no outs, yielded two unearned runs for Vargas. Don’t feel too bad for the 2015 defending champs though; they scored a run that resulted from a Chase De Jong throwing error in the first.
That was one of the few blemishes for the former Dodgers hurler for the afternoon. He scattered five base runners in four innings of work, during which he threw an efficient 58 pitches.
Boog Powell’s hot spring keeps getting hotter. He had the unique privilege of only hitting the baseball, avoiding the burden of standing in the scorching Arizona heat, by occupying a role scholars call “designated hitter.” He took that nomenclature seriously, finishing the day with a team-high three hits, with a double and a pair of RBI.
As a unit, the M’s accumulated 13 hits and walked six teams en route to a 9-2 trashing. The pitcher performance of the day goes to Cody Martin, who struck out five batters in three innings. Martin graduated from Gonzaga University, a small school in Spokane that plays high-quality basketball. They won their first NCAA Tournament game today against the South Dakota State Jackrabbits. Their next matchup is a spelling bee with Northwestern.
It’s also worth noting that the Mariners C’ed the heck out of the Z today. Seattle’s pitchers struck out nine batters today while issuing just one free pass, while their batters walked six times and went down on strikes only three times. Here are some other thrilling occurances from today’s game:
- Taylor Motter and his hair are continuing to perform impressively. He finished the day with two hits, a walk, and two runs batted in.
- John Trupin earned his daily shout-out, as Mitch Haniger recorded another hit and RBI.
- Press Virginia is the most fun team to watch in the tournament.
- Former Husky Braden Bishop scored a run and picked up a hit today. Not all is horrible in Husky Nation.
- Canadian Muscleman Tyler O’Niell ripped an RBI double today.
The Mariners thought it would be fun to split their squad in half and play two games in one day. They’re doing that tomorrow. If you aren’t tired of my writing yet, you will be tomorrow after I write both recaps. #SPRINGBREAK2K17
Back from #WBC2017, @toneill21 showed off that all-fields pop.#MarinersST pic.twitter.com/JWNgMYE1IZ
— Mariners (@Mariners) March 16, 2017
Go M’s (notice I didn’t say Go ‘Ners)!