Mariners Spring Training Game #17, 3/11/24, San Diego “at” Seattle: Open Game Thread

The Mariners take on Yu Darvish and the Padres for the second time this spring

It’s time for another game with Seattle’s complex-mate and Natural Rivals, the San Diego Padres. Today Seattle is the “home” team at the shared Peoria Sports Complex, with Logan Gilbert making his third start of the spring and looking to improve on his last outing against the Rangers when he got touched up for six runs in fewer than two innings. Five of those six runs came off two Evan Carter home runs, one a grand slam, further cementing the level of problem Agent Carter is going to be for years for Mariners pitching. Gilbert said after his start that he felt good but left too many pitches over the plate, while his manager said Gilbert failed to get his secondaries over the plate, so that will be an area to watch for improvements in for today. Scott Servais says Gilbert will be on a pitch count of around 55-60 pitches, hopefully getting him through the Padres lineup once, and will be looking for him to show some better feel for his secondary pitches today.

Opposing Gilbert will be Yu Darvish, who utterly bamboozled the Mariners hitters the last time they saw him on March 3; Darvish struck out six in just 3.1 innings. Unlike the last matchup, the Mariners will have almost all everyday starters in this game, hopefully with better results against Darvish and his encyclopedic arsenal.

Other notes from Servais:

• Ryne Stanek is being built up before he appears in games; he’ll throw a couple of BPs, one live, before he gets into games. Something to watch when he does: apparently Stanek broke out a new pitch in his last bullpen.
• The team continues to build up Luis Urías at third base; expect to see him in back-to-back games for the first time this spring soon. Per Servais, he’s throwing “better.”
• Matt Bash threw to 90 feet in a throwing session yesterday; Gregory Santos is expected to throw a BP today.

Also of note: the Mariners announced today they have agreed to terms with all pre-arbitration players in the organization.

Today’s game time: 1:10 PT/MT

TV: Padres broadcast on MLB.com

Radio: 710 Seattle Sports (live) or MLB.com