After a disappointing showing last night that dampened the excited South of France energy at the park, the Mariners try again to win a game against the Royals, a team with a worse record than the Detroit Tigers, against whom the Mariners also had trouble mustering a single solitary win.
Despite the dreadful box score in his last outing against the Astros he did show some improvement in not solely relying on his fastball and mixing his pitches more, and he also seems to be toying with a new, harder version of his slider that’s more like a cutter, hopefully to get the ball on the ground more.
Hopefully the Mariners hitters can get into good counts and see that fastball rather than have to deal with the change; long at-bats would also be helpful in getting to the soft underbelly of the Royals bullpen, especially if Gilbert gives up some runs of his own.
Also, Sean Doolittle has been added to the active roster and will be in uniform and available tonight.
Tonight’s game is at 7:10 PT and can be found on all the usual bat-channels: ROOT Sports NW , and MLB dot com for those of you following on Gameday.