Today the Mariners were spread out all over the desert state of Arizona. The A squad, boasting James Paxton’s first start of the spring, hosted the San Diego Padres in Peoria as the B squad traveled to SURPRISE!!!! (sorry) to take on the Kansas City Royals. Neither squad was victorious today, but as far as I know, no one was injured. So, I have to say it was a good day (hits the 3-wheel motion, goes to Fatburger).

A Squad!

Highlights

• James Paxton had a perfectly fine two innings of work. No strikeouts, but he only gave up hard contact once on a double to Freddy Galvis. Everything else was soft contact and flyouts. Most importantly, NO INJURIES YAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!
• Jean Segura had his first dinger of the spring!

Jean added an RBI single (he reached second on an error) and is off to a lovely start this spring.

• Ian Miller had a nice bunt down the 3rd base line and reached on a throwing error:

Miller followed that up later with his first RBI of the spring. Also, behold the breathtaking foot speed of Mike Ford:

Impressive by Miller to get that hit with only one good eye.

Lowlights

• Christian Bergman got absolutely lit up, giving up a single, a double, and finally a 3 run homer to Austin Hedges before recording an out. If there is any justice in this world, Bergman doesn’t pitch more than a handful of innings beyond AAA this season, if any.
• The game ended 11-6 Padres many hours later.

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

• Today’s home plate umpire Ryan Blakney was either in a huge hurry or was actually falling for every single pitch framing job by both team’s catchers. Here is a small sampling of some of the hilariously bad called strikes throughout the game:

• Proven clubhouse veteran leader Eric Hosmer with the classic “no outs, breaking for home on contact” TOOTBLAN:

Later on, Hosmer was utterly owned by single A farmhand Michael Koval. Way to go, Michael!

• The San Diego broadcast was too busy surfing and being Californians to give a rip about Mariners pitchers after the sixth inning:

Seriously, though, the San Diego broadcasters said absolutely nothing of value after the fifth inning or so. The topics ranged from shrimp scampi purchased at Target to which kind of french fries are best to fretting about the rain because haha they’re from Southern California where there is eternal drought and so they didn’t bring their jackets. I mean they weren’t even mentioning their own players by name. I mean, all broadcasts teams do this I guess during Spring Training, but at least give the farmhands their 10 seconds of fame by mentioning their name and where they’re from or something, sheesh.

/quietly steps off admittedly ridiculous pedestal

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B Squad!

This was the battle of the utility boys as Taylor Motter, Andrew Romine, and Gordon Beckham were all in the starting lineup. There can be only one, fellas! Well, maybe two if things go poorly, but let’s not focus on that.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Ben Gamel also got stuck with the B Squad, but maybe it was to give the team some veteran leadership, I don’t know. But, Benny Ballgame and the Boyz got off to a 6-0 lead in the first inning as Braden Bishop led off with a double, Romine hit a two run dinger, Cameron Perkins hit a RBI single, Taylor Motter finally did something right and plated two runs with a double, and even ol’ Tuffy Gosewisch got in on the action with an RBI on a fielding error (naturally).

Things slowly went pear-shaped from there as Andrew Moore had a no good, very bad day on the mound. He gave up two runs in the bottom of the first and then proceeded to completely lose it in the bottom of the second with 2 solo home runs and a triple, leaving the game with it tied up 6-6.

The nightmare continued in the bottom of the third as Mariners pitcher Bryan Bonnell had his turn defending the garrison against the hordes. Did I mention that Benny Ballgame and the Boyz were facing mostly Royals starters? I should have mentioned that up front. So here was Bonnell, a name I won’t blame you for not knowing, and he proceeded to give up 3 runs, including a two run homer to Jorge Soler, while recording two outs. Bonnell was followed by Spencer Herrmann (wait does that translate to “sir mann” in German?) and Spencer got rocked for three more runs, including a solo shot by perennial All-Star Salvador Perez, and it was then 12-6 Royals at that point.

The game meandered from there and ended 14-9 Royals. Other good Mariner things of note included a Gordan Beckham solo shot, a RBI single by Chuck Taylor, and the return of Daniel Vogelbach to the linup. Vogelbach recorded two walks and scored a run. Nice to see that he didn’t miss much time from the foot contusion and hopefully he gets right back in the groove and we see more of that hit tool in action.

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Tomorrow, the Mariners re-combine into one giant team like an anime robot to take on the baseball team from Cleveland at the Goodyear Ballpark at 12:05 PM PST.