Game Preview #27, 4/29/23: Seattle at Toronto

Sorry for the late-ish start to this game thread; I fell down one of those Twitter rabbit holes where someone had posed the question, “What’s a show you’re convinced you’re the only one who watched?” Graphic design shows that only got one season are my passion, so I of course had to trawl all the replies and make sure my favorites were mentioned (Powerless! Wonder Falls! Bunheads! Selfie!) But anyway, the Mariners play a baseball game today, and it’s an early start for a Saturday (12:07 PT! You wacky Canadians), so let’s get to it.

Lineups:

In case you didn’t hear, the Mariners made a roster move today, sending Diego Castillo, who surprisingly still had options, to Tacoma, and summoning Easton McGee to make today’s start. If you listened to last week’s LL pod or read the newser on Robbie Ray’s injury announcement, you probably remember me saying Easton McGee had the inside track to being the next man up as the Mariners were obviously intentionally stretching out the one-time reliever in Tacoma. If you want a more in-depth dive on McGee, check out his 40 in 40 (and good luck trying to get “Me and Bobby McGee” out of your head), but here’s the tl;dr: he’s not a strikeout artist, but gets a lot of ground balls with his sinker.

Today it’s Ty France getting a day off after a rough performance yesterday, which means first base is the new home of the Swagginator. With all that foul territory on the first base side in the Rogers Centre, I like having the more-agile Haggerty in at first and, well, he can’t do much worse than France did yesterday with the bat. Haggerty’s wheels hopefully keeping them out of potential double plays will be especially key today with Kevin Gausman and his deadly splitter on the mound—if the Mariners batters can reach base today after striking out 15 times yesterday.

Today’s game info:

Today’s game starts at 12:07 PT and will be televised on regular old ROOT Sports since there’s no Kraken game. Aaron Goldsmith and Dan Wilson will be on the call there, while Rick Rizzs and Dave Sims will handle radio duties on 710 AM Seattle Sports. You can also stream the game on Mariners dot com or through the MLB app.

Today in Mariners history:

1999: In a game against the Detroit Tigers, Seattle sets the club record with 22 runs, including a club-record 11 runs in one inning. Ken Griffey Jr. ties a career-high with six RBI, including his 11^th career grand slam, and ties a club record with nine RBI in back-to-back games. Hopefully some of that run production will rub off on today’s team, which could really stand to start scoring some more runs.