Today is an abbreviated camp - no afternoon session in order to give players some rest before tomorrow’s intrasquad game. Intrasquad games will be every Friday with a similarly shortened workout the day before. As a reminder, the first intrasquad game will be tomorrow (which is Friday for those of you having trouble keeping track of the days of the weeks) at 2:30. The game will be broadcast on 710 ESPN, and likely on the Mariners YouTube channel or possibly even ROOT, but as Ryan Divish reports, the team is still in the process of obtaining MLB’s permission to do so. The intrasquad game will be seven innings and feature Justus Sheffield and Justin Dunn as starters. We’ll have an open game thread on the site; remember to warm up and stretch before you comment, we don’t want to see any early-season injuries. Hopefully Fiddle Cat is in the BSOHL.
In today’s shortened session, things start off with Kendall Graveman throwing live BP to Daniel Vogelbach. Graveman is then replaced by Aaron Fletcher, who throws to all of three batters including Tom Murphy, Tim Lopes, and Evan White before his day is done. The centerfield camera shot is not very useful for seeing details but it does allow for a good angle on seeing how long Fletcher’s arm stays behind his body and why he’s so difficult for hitters to pick up:
Graveman comes back out to throw to a few more batters and then...that’s pretty much it. Marco appears and throws a quick ‘pen, followed by Erik Swanson, which I think is the first we’ve seen of him. It’s tough to tell from just the broadcast but it looks like Swanson maybe isn’t throwing at max effort, so maybe he is being ramped up a little more slowly than some of the other pitchers. Swanson is followed by Sam Delaplane, who had some location and overthrowing issues in his live BP session, but seems happy and relaxed today.
In other exciting news, we have our first Julio Rodriguez sighting of camp:
Here’s a long video of #Mariners top prospects Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez playing catch. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/VZUNw8NM7j
— Lauren Smith (@smithlm12) July 9, 2020
Julio arrived in Seattle about a week ago but hadn’t yet cleared the intake process, and had been training in Florida, where case numbers remain high, so it’s good to see him and that megawatt smile out there:
Oh hey, Julio.
— Lauren Smith (@smithlm12) July 9, 2020
(Photos: @Bessex_Joshua) pic.twitter.com/fxcFIdBzj6