9/1: Open game thread

Ah September. Rosters expand, a fall chill sets into the air. And despite the fact that the last week has seen your Seattle Mariners fire their general manager, demote Mike Zunino, trade Austin Jackson and Justin Ruggiano, AND move Brad Miller to center field/Tal's Hill, this rag tag crew of stars and scrubs actually has to keep playing baseball a little while longer.

Nathan detailed the first wave of call ups, so I won't go over them again, except to share this little nugget:

Once he debuts, the Mariners will have rostered the bookends in the baseball player register: Aardsma to Zych.

— Brendan Gawlowski (@GawlowskiB) September 1, 2015

Tonight, Roenis Elias takes on a home run happy Astros team (yikes, those were bad last night!). His first start back from Tacoma was undone by poor defensive play (Brad Miller: Not a Third Baseman), the White Sox's horrifying throwback uniforms, and so-so pitching. He performed fair-to-middlingish over 4.2 innings. Let's hope for better tonight. And fewer dingers.

On the Astros side, the good news is they will not start Dallas Keuchel tonight. The bad news is they are still in first place in the AL West, still employ Carlos Correa, and will start Scott Feldman who, despite a not unhittable 3.75 ERA, held the Mariners to two runs over seven innings in his only other start against them this year. Mark Trumbo has already hit two home runs this series (one of which went very, very far), so someone else will have to pick up the slack.

Don't accept any care packages from the Royals, get your booster shots, and go win a baseball game, you hopefully chicken pox immune bunch of lummoxes.

Game Info:

• Mariners @ Astros, 5:10 PM PDT, Minute Maid Park
• TV: ROOT Sports, Radio: 710 ESPN, Online: MLB.TV