It seems a long time since we’ve seen a red-eyed Kyle Seager wave goodbye to the crowd at T-Mobile Park. It seems a very long time since we saw Taylor Trammell laugh as he made an unlikely catch in the outfield, or Ty France evolved into a Gold Glove-neighboring first baseman, or Paul Sewald stunned hitters with a fastball, who sits a full notch lower than the MLB average or any of the other nighttime heroes committed to propelling the Mariners to an unlikely 90 wins in 2021. And it feels like it’s been a very, very, very long time since the Mariners started last year’s opening day in a way that would become emblematic of Mariners 2021: in the most chaotic way possible. After a long series of increasingly nonsensical plays, they finally won on a walk-off walk.
Today, in their season opener, the Mariners have somehow wrapped up an offseason marked by doubt and uncertainty, a multitude of personnel changes including the departure of their franchise third baseman, and baseball’s annual long hibernation, and established a firm line between the team in 2021 and the 2022 team. Yes, this team looks different, with a real ace at the top of the rotation and a missing franchise cornerstone at third base, but the 2022 Mariners are here to assure you they’re ready still being the lovable fools you fell in love with last year, equal parts funny and frustrating, ready for you to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
In non-clingy baseball, Robbie Ray was as heralded in his Mariners debut. The old adage goes that solo homers won’t beat you, and the lone homer that Ray allows actually didn’t beat him. He went seven innings — the first pitcher in the major to reach the seven-inning mark this year — and threw 96 pitches, 63 of them for strikes (65%), living up to his reputation as a strike thrower. Describing Ray as a brutalist artist in his 40s in 25s, John noted that his pitching philosophy is remarkably simple for starters: fastballs up, sliders down, here it is, hit it if you can. On the whole, the twins actually couldn’t nail it; Ray scattered just three hits over his seven innings, including two hard-hitting singles, one against perpetual nuisance Carlos Correa, and a home run from fellow Nu-Twin Gio Urshela when one of Ray’s sliders grabbed a little too much of the plate and Urhsela got it literally golfed it into the stands for a home run. He amassed five strikeouts and 17 puffs, more than double the next pitcher in the game.
Here’s Ray’s pitch distribution for today:
Baby you’re fireworks
Though Ray didn’t allow the batters to do much with his stuff, he still had to dance his way out of harm’s way on several occasions thanks to occasional command errors that saw him hit a batter and complete four walks. Ray explained in his post-game interview that his mistakes were where he wanted them and he found his stuff was crisp, which is a bit hot when you’ve walked the eight and nine-racers once each, but We’ll take that into account to get the momentum back and we certainly won’t be arguing about Ray’s performance today. Ray ran an incredible 90% streak rate last season; Haters will say it’s unsustainable, but he stranded all six runners he allowed to reach base today, dialing in clutch double plays, strikes and weak contact when he needed it.
Not that Ray wasn’t grateful to his outfielders for putting those flyballs away – here he expresses his gratitude to Julio for catching a Carlos Correa inning-ending flyout that stranded two (Julio, in turn, manned that midfield competently and took four no-sweatfly ball-outs).
Unfortunately, bringing 2021 vibes with you also means bringing with you the not-always-reliable 2021 offense. The Mariners battled the Twins in a no, actually, you first game and stranded ten – 1-0! – Batters of their own on the base. The Mariners’ only runs of the day came on a home run by Mitch Haniger in the first inning:
This probably should have been a three-run home run, as Adam Frazier appeared to have reached from the starting position when Miguel Sanó appeared to miss the bag, and while we love the chaotic energy of challenging two pitches in the season, the Mariners unfortunately came up short on this one. It turns out that clearly announced acoustic repeat explanations are no longer satisfactory if they are still wrong.
And the Mariners wouldn’t get any more runs. All game long. That’s the awkward part of Chaos Ball, remember that in order to get the one-run win, we have to suffer a lot from not taking chances first. Twins starter Joe Ryan was clearly the weaker of the two first-name pitchers and struggled mightily with the zone; He gave as many walks as strike batters out (4) and threw only 42 of his 70 pitches to strikes in a zone that looked more like a post office than a postage stamp. There was an opportunity in the third where the Mariners threatened Ryan, but it was wiped out when Correa hooked a superb hook on a Mitch Haniger hotshot (106.3 on the go, giving Hanimal two of the three hardest-hit balls in brought to this game). that seemed destined for left field and an RBI. Correa also robbed Adam Frazier with a jumping grave, meaning Frazier was cheated out of two hits today. I will be very happy to see Correa’s back for a while at the end of this series.
The Mariners got batters on base against Ryan but kept failing to throw themselves into his four innings of work and thus had to deal with the absolutely stinky stinky dirt of Jhoan Duran. This was the first time I saw Duran and Mann, the comparisons to Edwin Díaz are not out of place. This stuff is absolutely electric, not only with triple-digit heat, but also with wicked movement. Ty France managed to flip 101 on the outside for a hit and Jesse Winker followed up with a base hit of his own, but Duran continued hitting the side to limit damage. I don’t normally post the opposing team’s stuff in summaries, but I want you to understand what they were dealing with:
Zoinks! I mean ZO INKS. Call the zoinksbulance because we have max ZOINKS.
(Yes, I misspelled his name, I did it phonetically, sorry Jhoan.)
The Mariners also couldn’t do anything about the less flamethrower Jorge Alcala – pretty rough if 94-98 is any less flamethrower – and left-hander Danny Coulombe, meaning they went into the last two innings of the game clinging to a one-off -Lead leadership. Paul Sewald was his Paul-the-Wall self, gently popping the top of the Twins lineup (Buxton, Polanco) and defeating Correa on a grounder expertly handled by Eugenio Suárez, who had a tough day at the plate , but made several solid games in third place.
With that, Drew Steckenrider was responsible for ninth-place bottoming, and the first hitter he faced was a troublesome Luis Arraez, who fell 0-2 and then worked a nine-pitch-at-bat before delivering a small slapshot for a base played hit – 70.9 MPH EV with an xBA of 0.830, incredibly annoying. Steck rebounded to get Sanó to join Raleigh and beat Alex Kirilloff with a nasty switch. That brought up Gary Sánchez, the embattled former New Yorker, and the crowd chanted his name: Ga-ry, Ga-ry, Ga-ry. What kind of fairy tale would that be, right? What a beautiful story of redemption and the power of a change of scenery, of moving to a less toxic environment.
And right off the bat, it seemed like the story would be told:
Oh no
where is kugel canada probable?
“Don’t worry, I’ll save you, I’ll jump! for this ball”
“ah ok that worked better”
when you get your first taste of Chaos Ball
Time is a flat circle. One run baseball is back, baby. Prepare accordingly.
Kate’s unsung hero of the game:
Cal Raleigh might not have made the box score shine with a single, slightly awkward chopper and two walks, but he had one of the best plays on the field today on both sides of the ball and was adept at handling his pitching staff. to control the game in progress, make several key blocks and keep the ball in front of you. It was a visual leap forward from Cal over the past year and hopefully bodes well for the future.