Mariners Game #95, 7/19/23: MIN at SEA

The thing about the way the Mariners have been losing this season is so often it’s such a big blowout ugly loss that it makes the team feel much worse than a .500ish team. Last night’s game was a disaster, and yet the laws of baseball state the season is not yet over no matter how many times it’s said in the comments, and so the Mariners shamble into the park Nosferatu-like once again to play what would normally be the final game of the series but is instead a fun midweek night game. For fun.

Lineups:

As they did against Woo last night, the Twins will run out a very lefty-heavy lineup against Castillo. Castillo has struggled slightly more with lefties than righties this year, mostly in his walk rate: while he’s striking lefties and righties out at almost the same clip, he’s walking lefties 10% of the time, vs. just 6.6% for righties, leading partially to an FIP that’s almost a full run higher against lefties as opposed to righties. The key for Castillo tonight will be to limit the free passes and keep the pesky Twins from driving up his pitch count too much, helping to save a beleaguered bullpen.

News and notes:

Speaking of the bullpen, there have been a couple moves made to replenish it after the game went deeply pear-shaped last night. Prelander Berroa and Devin Sweet have both been summoned from Double-A Arkansas, while Ty Adcock and Isaiah Campbell will go spend a little time in Tacoma.

Game information:

It’s a 6:40 start tonight and the first 10,000 fans in the ballpark will get a special Mariners pack of trading cards courtesy of Topps to celebrate International Trading Card day, coming up on August 5th. No word from the game notes about who will be on what call, but the television broadcast of the game will be on ROOT Sports, while the audio call will be on 710 AM Seattle Sports, so same bat-time, same bat-channels for those.

Today in Mariners history:

• 1989: Rookie Greg Briley hits two solo home runs as the Mariners shut out the Orioles 7-0. Greg Briley was one of my first baseball cards, speaking of International Trading Card Day.
• 1994: Four ceiling tiles fall from the ceiling of the Kingdome prior to a game against the Orioles, causing the first postponement of a game in Kingdome history. The Kingdome would wind up being closed, and the Mariners played the rest of the strike-shortened season on the road. Weirdly, this would jumpstart the struggling Mariners, who went 9-1 in August before the strike ended the season.
• 2014: Félix Hernández ties an American League record with his 12th consecutive start of at least 7.0 innings allowing 2 or fewer runs in a no-decision vs. the Angels. That record had stood uncontested since 1907, when Hall-of-Famer Charles “Chief” Bender did it for the Philadelphia Athletics from June-August 1907. The Angels can’t even take credit for doing the Tungsten Arm bit first.
• 2016: Edwin Díaz records his 39^th strikeout, the most in Major League history (1913-on) in a reliever’s first 20.0 career innings or fewer; it took Díaz 19.2 innings to get to 39.

Game thread prompt question:

In anticipation of International Trading Card Day, what is your most prized baseball card and why? (Feel free to submit a non-baseball card answer)