9/19/20: Open Game Thread

It’s Saturday, and you know what that means: it’s you and me and Justus Sheffield, baybay. While not quite the comfort and safety of a Marco Gonzales start, Justus has provided stability in the rotation while improving on his 2019 performance. He’s walking significantly fewer batters, mixing in the changeup more and not relying solely on his slider to wipe away hitters, and limiting damage—batters are barreling him up just 3.9% of the time, well under the MLB average of 6.4%, and he’s only surrendered two longballs, for an HR/9 that’s seventh in the league among all starters (min. 30 IP). Those sparkling HR numbers will be put to test against Slam Diego’s power-charged lineup.

Oh! Speaking of that!

So the Mariners won’t be seeing Mike Clevinger but instead hard-throwing but poor-locating Luis Patino, as well as a host of other relievers from the Padres’ pen, one assumes. Sheff, meanwhile, will now have to navigate through both recently-returned Tommy Pham and Hosmer. Fun. The Mariner will counter with their “A” lineup, which unfortunately is more like a California C-minus.

The Padres didn’t have their lineup available while I was typing this, due to the shuffling, I guess, so here I made my own best guess:

morituri te salutant.

News:

Scott Servais gave some pre-game updates: Tom Murphy has returned to his home in the woods to nurse his broken paw there amongst the comfort of his fellow creatures, Mitch Haniger continues to work out but a bat and ball are not allowed within a 100-foot radius of him, and Shed Long is deciding whether or not to get a rod inserted in his broken shin. But baseball is the safe sport, remember.

In a bit of good news, Julio is swinging a bat again with both hands:

Game info:

Game time: 6:10 PT

Available on: ROOT NW (TV), 710 ESPN (radio), MLB dot TV (out of area only)

Go: Mariners