Mmm-mmmm, it’s that first tasty morsel of the baseball season. Served up hot on a chilly (and now snowy!) Friday afternoon here in Seattle. We fans now have new, fresh, and exciting Mariners baseball things to over-analyze and fret about! Hell yes.

As is the custom, the Mariners and Padres opened their respective Cactus League campaigns against one another in their shared home stadium in Peoria. Padres got the home start with the Mariners as the road team. Let’s get into the “haha there’s still almost a week left in February” hot desert baseball action!

Highlights

• The first time through the Mariners lineup went about as well as you could hope for. Nelson Cruz and Robinson Cano sat this one out and are easing their gracefully-aged bones into the spring, but other than those two absences, this lineup was probably pretty close to the variations we’ll see in the first few weeks of the season. Dee Gordon started the game off with a line drive double.

Jean Segura then singled and Gordon came around to score easily advanced to third base. Gordon then scored on a throwing error at second on Segura successful steal attempt. And then Kyle Seager, clearly feeling himself as he hit in the three spot, smacked a double to score Segura. Mariners up 2-0, just like they drew it up. Couple of hit batters and ground outs later, the inning ended.

• Starting pitcher Ariel Miranda wasn’t super sharp, but made his way through 2 innings, gave up only one run, notched a strikeout, walked two batters, and was given credit for the win.
• Segura knocked in the third run on a sacrifice fly in the top of the second inning.
• Benny Ballgame had a very solid diving catch in the bottom of the second inning.

• BREAKING: Christian Bergman grew his hair out.

• Daniel Vogelbach cracked a line shot right over first base for an easy double, which almost became an attempt at a triple when the right fielder had some trouble with the ball in the corner and presumably some confusion with the base coaches. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and Our Large Adult Son returned safely to second base, dignity and first hit of the spring intact.

• Dan Altavilla shut the door in the bottom of the ninth, striking out the side quickly and holding onto that one run lead for first victory of Spring Training 2018. Yay!

Lowlights

• First TOOTBLAN of the spring goes to Andrew Romine who was thrown out at third base trying to stretch a double that was misplayed off the wall into a triple. Welcome home, son.
• Ian Miller was thrown out at home trying to score on a spiked pitch. The play was very close, though, and he mayyyyy have been safe. Probably would be reviewed during the regular season. Either way, speed is Miller’s top weapon and he was in there in a hurry. I don’t hate the aggressiveness in this kind of situation, to be honest, but add it to the TOOTBLAN tally, I guess.
• Shawn Armstrong gave up a solo homer to Fernando Tatis in the bottom of the eighth to make it 3-2 Mariners.
• Mariners tried to add-on in the top of the ninth, but Zach Vincej was thrown out at home trying to score on a pop-up by Taylor Motter and then Andrew Aplin was promptly thrown out trying to steal second base. So I guess that brings the TOOTBLAN total to four, depending on your definition of “like a nincompoop.”

Today in “It’s Spring Training for everyone!”

Look, technology is hard. Being an on-air personality is hard. I get it. That doesn’t mean I can’t poke fun at shortcomings and gaffs. It’s a long season and we all gotta get our reps in, right?

• It was already 2-0 in real time when I took this screenshot, but it’s fine, we’ll get there eventually, At Bat.

• The Padres TV feed was available occasionally today through MLB.tv until it finally crashed around the fourth inning. Or at least I finally gave up on it. How did it work for everyone else?
• MLB.tv on that full name only grind:

• Rick Rizzs told a story in the fifth inning in which he insinuated that when he and Dave Niehaus would drive around Arizona during ST, Dave would fart a lot. C’mon, Uncle Rick. Let’s tune up those anecdotes.

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Spring Training 2018 continues tomorrow with the first game on ROOT Sports Northwest of the spring against the Chicago White Sox at 12:10 PM PST.