5/18/21: Open Game Thread

Last night’s Detroit showdown went poorly for the Seattle Mariners, as the No. 1 overall pick of the 2018 draft outdueled Yusei Kikuchi, the No. 6 pick in the 2018 draft, and the rest of the M’s. Seattle got some tough breaks, with a number of lasers finding gloves, but ultimately they were outplayed as Kikuchi got punished once, as did the Mariners for putting in Brady Lail. Today, Justin Dunn will continue his bridging-on-performance-art campaign against peripherals, looking to improve upon his 3.72/5.09/6.02 ERA/FIP/DRA and 18.9%-15.7% K-BB%. Dunn has only given up more than three runs in one of his 20 starts in the bigs somehow, yet almost every metric on the planet would tell you he is building a house on quicksand. Hopefully facing one of the league’s limpest offenses can put his numbers in better stead.

Lineups!

Behind Dunn will be Jarred Kelenic, making his first start in center field in the majors as Kyle Lewis takes a turn at DH. Kelenic is pursuing his first base on balls of his career, and has had a few quiet games outside his Friday night explosion, but he’s already barreling the ball up and getting shifted heavily, so we’ll see if he can find some more grass against Spencer Turnbull, who is a claimant to Mike Leake’s throne of definitional “average MLB starting pitcher”.

Game time: 7:10 PM PST

TV: Root Sports NW

Radio: 710 AM ESPN Seattle

Streaming: MLB.tv