6/18/19: Open Game Thread

Last night we had a discussion among the staff: do you prefer a blowout loss where the game is out of reach early on, or one where the bullpen lets the game slip away in the late innings? Eternal optimist John prefers a game that at least pretends to be competitive, while resident pessimist Zach prefers the narrative become apparent early on in order to begin crafting his recap. As someone who has also had to write their fair share of recaps, and in this particular season, I’m Team Zach. Losing to the Royals is a special brand of shame, though, so let’s hope the Mariners don’t put themselves in the position of having to avoid the sweep tomorrow by securing a win tonight.

Some things to note:

• No Opener tonight! Yay! In case you missed it, John examined how the Opener is just Opening the Mariners fanbase to pain.

• I love the Vogelbach-Narváez pairing in the middle of the lineup. That’s a ten-pitch inning minimum, guaranteed, right there.
• Tom Murphy, DH? Why not.

I failed to post last week’s FanPulse results, because I am terrible, but the national question was somewhat relevant with Rob Manfred’s recent visit to Seattle to knight John Stanton or whatever he was here to do.

Honestly, I am a little surprised at how close these results are, but I suppose it’s natural that negative criticism always seems to be the loudest. Personally I wish Manfred would stop messing around with the game and focus on growing it organically and in a way that resonates with today’s #youth, but that’s just me.

As for our weekly questions, confidence in the team’s direction is trending slowly up, at 79%, perhaps fueled by a non-disastrous road trip and a June that so far doesn’t look as terrible as the team’s dreadful May. Manager approval is ticking up slowly as well.

Reminder: if you want to be involved in FanPulse voting (it’s fun! it’s free! it will consume a small part of your workday during which you can look like you’re doing serious business while actually voting in a poll about a sports team!), click here to sign up.

Tonight’s game is on at 7:10 PM, available on all the usual bat-channels: ROOT, 710 ESPN, MLB dot com if you’re just following GameDay.