3/20/14: Mariners open game thread

Man...real baseball is so close, I can almost taste it. Today the M's are trotting a very possible and likely rotation candidate out to the mound who will pitch more than two innings, facing another team's actual major-league pitcher. Then behind this Mariners rotation candidate will be a bunch of players who will almost assuredly all be on the team's roster come opening day. So close! At the very least, we don't have to watch Blake Beavan pitch today, since he started yesterday. This is good. So many things are good.

Game info:

• Mariners, Cubs, 1:05 PM PST
• No TV, 710 ESPN (delay), MLB.com radio stream
• John Buck takes over for Zunino behind the plate, and Logan Morrison gets the start in Right Field. You know, part of me actually wishes they would have trotted him out there more this spring training, just to see with their actual damn eyes what he looks like out there before the regular season. But then again, that probably wouldn't have stopped them either.
• Robinson Cano is back in the lineup again. I still feel like Cano is the cool new kid in your class you always wanted to be friends with, and now are, and are afraid of doing something embarrassing in front of him and ruining the whole charade. Need a couple of days off? Oh please yes do whatever, totally man, yeah, it's cool. You're back! And you want to play with us? Oh gee whiz, yeah, sure do whatever you want man, its totally cool. No worries.
• Cubs phenom Javier Baez hit a 452-foot home run yesterday that broke the internet. He's not in the lineup today, which means the Mariners can go ahead and win, because otherwise I wouldn't have minded seeing four dingers from the guy.

Lineups:

Mariners