8/28: Open Game Thread

After error-plagued series in Atlanta and New York, the Mariners will attempt to pull themselves together while facing the Wild Card-chasing Orioles. As Jake and Luke pointed out in the series preview, the Orioles are playing good baseball lately, coming off a sweep of the Red Sox in Fenway. Meanwhile, the Mariners, despite winning series in Tampa Bay and Atlanta, have been eking out wins when either the offense doesn’t show or the pitching staff gives up a metric ton of runs. Compounding these uneasy feelings is the backed-up garbage disposal of the game they played yesterday to mercifully end the series with NY, in which the Mariners committed five errors in a single inning and fans committed themselves to drinking before noon. Blissfully, this is the last stop in the punishing road trip, and the Mariners get eased into the series by facing Chris Tillman, recently returned from banishment to the bullpen.

I am still trying to rescue the most recent podcast from audio problems, but John and I talked at some length about Marco Gonzales’s last outing and how beneath the numbers, there are encouraging signs. After working so much over the plate, it seems like Marco was instructed by Servais to move off the plate, which he did in Atlanta to varying degrees of success. In this outing, I’ll be looking for Gonzales to find a happy medium between working around the plate but limiting his walks, something he wasn’t able to do in Atlanta. 538 gives the Orioles a slight edge in this game, but I think if Gonzales can execute his pitches and the offense wakes up, the Mariners should be able to win this game decisively. Of course, a lot of that depends on how quickly they can flush an absolutely abysmal performance from yesterday.

Game info: 4:05 PT; ROOTNW, 710 ESPN, and MLB.tv (scoreboard-watchy note: The Angels-A’s game is the free game of the day, if you’re interested)