Seattle hopes to right the ship and fire back at the visiting Pirates.
Today the Mariners are taking aim with La Piedra, Luis Castillo, hoping to sink the Pirates ship that fired off so many cannon balls over the outfield wall in last night’s matchup. Setting up across from him for the Pittsburgh crew will be the revenant raider Vince Velasquez, back from injury and activated today for the start.
The Pirates are mostly bringing a similar lineup, and one composed of two-thirds left or switch handed hitting, to go up against the righty Castillo. Andrew McCutchen is the most notable absence from yesterday’s lineup, with Marcano slotting into his leadoff spot, and Jason Delay gets the start at catcher on the short rest. On Seattle’s side, the lineup order is mostly the same as it has been, but with some notable position swaps. Eugenio Suárez is slotting into the designated hitter role, and José Caballero will be operating the Good Vibes Only hot corner of the ship.
At his pre-game presser Scott Servais addressed Eugenio getting the start at DH, pointing out they are in the middle of a thirteen game, multi-city stretch with no off days. “He’ll be in there today, we certainly need his bat in the lineup, but we’ll get Cabby in at third. Cabby does a good job wherever you put him, you know, second is his natural position, but he’s played plenty of short, plenty of third, so that’s what we’ll roll with today.” Ever the Dad of the Good Ship Mariner, he also had this to say about the weather: “The ball was jumping out of here last night. We’ll see what happens today. There’s a marine layer today.”
First pitch is scheduled to be thrown at 1:10 pm Pacific, and the television broadcast will be on its usual home of ROOT Sports NW, with Aaron Goldsmith and Ryan Rowland-Smith on the call. The radio feed will be broadcasting from Seattle Sports (710 AM), and Rick Rizzs and Gary Hill Jr. will be the tandem calling that feed.