Mariners Game #123 Preview: 8/19 SEA at HOU

The Mariners have won four in a row and have taken each of their last seven games down to the wire. If the other bats give Julio some help, maybe they can win an easy one for the first time in a week. Standing in their way will be Framber Valdez and his devestating arsenal of well commanded ground-ball generating pitches. Would you believe that in facing 253 Mariners batters in his career over 11 games (including the playoffs), he has never surrendered a single home run? It’s true.

With Gilbert on the bump for Seattle, this is definitely the marquee pitching matchup of the series. Of course with baseball being baseball, we’re probably in for a 13-9 final score.

Lineups

Mariners and Astros Twitter

The story in Mariners baseball right now is Julio Rodríguez, who bats leadoff again tonight while J.P. is expected back tomorrow (pretty please!). Julio is coming off his third four-hit game in a row, the first Mariner to ever do it. He also tied the franchise record last night with a hit in his ninth consecutive at-bat. Oh, he also stole two bases. Oh, and he hit his 21st home run of the year. What will he do tonight? I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling #22. It would be the 50th of his emergent, brilliant career.

Game Info

First Pitch: 4:10 PT
TV: ROOT Sports (Sims and Hyphen) (N.B. tomorrow’s game will stream exclusively on Peacock)
Radio: 710 AM and mariners dot com (Rizzs and Gary)

This Day In Mariners History

• 1986: Mark Langston strikes out 14 in a complete game victory over the Yankees
• 1988: In his first game back in New York after being traded, Jay Buhner hits a go-ahead home run in Yankee Stadium all the way into the center field seats, the first right-hander to ever do it (though Ken Phelps then walks it off in extras)
• 1992: Bret Boone debuts and makes the Boones the first family to have three generations play in MLB
• 2001: Mike Cameron ties the franchise record with 8 RBI in a single game, going 4 for 4 with a grand slam and a three-run bomb in the Mariners 10-2 win over the Yankees
• 2009: Ichiro hits the game-winning home run off Justin Verlander (who struck out out 10 Mariners (good lord, he’s been doing this to us for so long))
• 2014: Hisashi Iwakuma strikes out 11 over 8 scoreless innings against the Phillies, Robinson Cano gets his career-high 10th stolen base
• 2017: In the game in which he is activated from the IL, Mitch Haniger hits a grand slam
• 2020: Two days after their first MLB game against each other (in which they both homered), Kyle and Corey Seager each commit an error in the same game
• 2022: The Mariners hang five runs on Cole Irvin thanks to two Geno bombs

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