Game #31 Preview: Seattle Mariners at Oakland Athletics
If a broom sweeps in the forest and nobody hears it, does it clean a mess?
It’s a matinee for the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners as Seattle hopes to sweep the A’s into oblivion, or perhaps more accurately just swirl them around in there. To do so, they’ll run George Kirby out to the hill, for a third straight day of challenging Oakland to handle high-quality fastballs in the zone over and over. Seattle faces a potentially challenging starter unfortunately yet again, this time in the form of righty Drew Rucinski who is back stateside after a dominant four-year sojourn in the Korean Baseball Organization with the NC Dinos. That said, Rucinski is also a 34-year-old journeyman who took a deal with Oakland likely on the balance that nobody else could guarantee him a chance to start. The junkballer actually uses three fastballs moving in variable directions along with a splitter and curve, but if he pushes over 90 mph much it would be a shock.
Kolten Wong is back in the lineup, hoping to continue a slight resurgence offensively that has not necessarily coincided with his defense. Still, after sitting to Jose Caballero twice in a row, Wong can hopefully put things in the right direction. Additionally, the club gave encouraging news on Andrés Muñoz, who should be in rehab games within the week and is hopefully on pace to rejoin Seattle in mid-May, per the club.
Today’s Game Info:
Today’s matchup begins at 12:47 PM Pacific on ROOT Sports NW and on the radio at Seattle Sports (710 AM). Both the television and radio feed should be available on MLB dot tv and the MLB app, with requisite subscriptions and where blackouts don’t apply.