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The Mariners are done playing the Dodgers, thank goodness, and get a much more favorable matchup in the Rangers. They’re even favored to win a game! No lie! Here, Jake and Tim wrote about it:
I would feel better about the Mariners winning this game, except after the lineups dropped this afternoon, they were almost immediately snatched back and replaced with “no, not that one, this one,” which is like when they hand you the menu with the daily specials and then say “oh no sorry, wrong fresh sheet,” and take it away and replace the one that had all the food you’d like to eat on it with one that has not a single appealing dish. Ugh, remember going to restaurants? What I wouldn’t give for the sudden flash of grief when the waiter recites what they’re out of, the imagined dishes I will never eat. I’m sure the Germans have a word for that. Kummerspeck-Weltschmerz? Oh yeah, lineups:
Mariners-Rangers lineups, 6:10 p.m. PT. With Dylan Moore scratched due to sore wrist and Evan White still out with bruised knee, Shed Long Jr. is only healthy position player on bench tonight (though White and Moore could play if needed). pic.twitter.com/oEBxNKsQm6
— Greg Johns (@GregJohnsMLB) August 21, 2020
The imagined dish tonight is one Dylan Moore, who was a late scratch with a sore wrist. Seeing as how watching Dylan Moore hit is like 37% of the joy I take in any given 2020 Mariners game, this is bad news for me personally, but also for the team, as this pushes Nola to 1B and Joe Odom behind the dish. Evan White remains out with the sore knee, but at least was out running around and doing some drills earlier today, and looks to be available in a pinch. Poor Nicky Marge is going to have a job keeping runs off the board because other than the 1-2 punch of Kyles, it’s hard to see where a lot of offense is going to come from this crew tonight. (Admittedly, I have always been a Kolby Allard fan, despite the spelling of his first name.)
No Evan White in the lineup also means we’re being deprived of some potential former UK Wildcat-on-Wildcat battles, as White’s Kentucky teammate and good friend Kyle Cody was called up by the Rangers. The 6’7” (!) Cody is a shade older than White, drafted in 2016, but had his MLB debut delayed as he was part of the rash of pitching injuries that have befallen the Rangers over the past couple years; he had TJ surgery in 2018 and missed all of 2019.
Meanwhile, the Mariners did some calling up of their own, selecting LHP Aaron Fletcher from the alternate training site in place of fellow lefty Taylor Guilbeau, who will go on the IL with a shoulder strain. Yoshihisa Hirano, finally recovered from his bout with COVID-19 and brought up to speed, has also been summoned from Tacoma to make his 2020 season debut.
Game info:
Game time: 6:10 PT
TV: ROOT Sports NW
Radio/Web: 710 ESPN, Mariners Radio Network; Mariners dot com, MLB Gameday
MLB dot TV: The Mariners are not the free game of the day, that is MIN-KC at 5 PM if you are interested in seeing Nelson Cruz do bad things to baseballs, so only available out-of-area.