6/14/19: Open Game Thread, Roster Updates, News

Tonight the Mariners begin yet another series against the A’s. Boy am I sick of the AL West.

Before we get to the lineups, some news. The Mariners made the following roster moves today:

After posting an FIP of 3.26 over April, Brennan has steadily become less effective, posting an FIP of 5.30 in May and 6.90 in June while seeing his K% fall off sharply and his BB% rise. Festa, who has been riding the Tacoma-to-Seattle shuttle heavily this year, will theoretically get a more extended look in his place. Word from Shannon Drayer is that Shed Long will be playing primarily 2B in Tacoma, which has fueled some speculation that the Mariners are looking to move Dee Gordon, although that might also speak to Tacoma’s lack of middle infield options.

In other injury news, Félix Hernández is making a rehab start for Tacoma tonight, and literally in the middle of me typing this sentence was lifted from the game in the third after walking a batter (he also had two HBPs, although one looked to be an extremely dubious call). It looked like Félix was sort of shaking out his forearm as he came off the mound, so that doesn’t seem...great. In other not-great but probably necessary news, Justus Sheffield was transferred to Arkansas to try to get his groove back. It worked for Dan Altavilla, so let’s hope the Traveler magic rubs off on Justus. Arkansas, however, has recently lost their manager Mitch Canham to his dream job at OSU. While it’s outstanding news for Canham, who gets to move back home to the Northwest full-time, it’s certainly a loss for the Mariners, as Canham was one of the brightest rising stars in the organization.

And yet there is still a game tonight! It starts at 6:30, which is weird, because Oakland is weird. Maybe they thought there’d be some kind of celebration there tonight? Who knows.

The game is available on ROOT, 710 ESPN, and MLB dot com/the At-Bat app.