After a very bad and nasty 1-5 road trip, the Mariners return home for a little 4-game set against their division arch-rivals, the Houston Astros. With the Mariners currently sitting in dead last in the AL West, a win tonight is greatly needed.<\/p>\n
Tonight also has the distinction of being both Ichiro Statue day and Ichiro Replica Statue Night! Lots of Ichiro today! Unfortunately, there\u2019s a little less Ichiro than expected, as the bat on his new statue broke during the unveiling. I asked my local auger if that was a bad omen and he simply stared at me and screamed. The first 40,000 fans to arrive to the game tonight will receive a replica of the statue in its undamaged state.<\/p>\n
There is a suspiciously Brendan Donovan shaped hole in the lineup today, with Leo Rivas taking over duty at third base. Donovan is out with illness, but it thankfully seems to have not spread throughout the clubhouse. Otherwise, the standout is a return to the leadoff slot for J.P. Crawford. J.P. spent much of last summer in the number one spot, but Dan Wilson seems to prefer him in the number 9 hole where he can turn the lineup over. With Donovan out though, Wilson\u2019s hand was forced. We\u2019ll see if some of J.P.\u2018s old leadoff magic can be recovered.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Emerson Hancock will make his third start of the season. Hancock has gotten off to a hot start this year, only allowing one run and racking up 14 strikeouts in 12.2 IP. His sweeper has been excellent, with no opposing hitters able to get a hit off it, despite a 24.6% usage rate. Paired with his 4-seamer and sinker, Emerson has been a standout pitcher in 2026.<\/p>\n
Tatsuya Imai will be making the start for the Astros. The MLB newcomer has had a mixed first two stateside starts. In his debut against the Angels he was blown up to the tune of 4 runs, 3 hits, and 4 walks in 2.2 innings, but then held the Athletics scoreless over 5.2 innings of 3-hit ball. His slider is weird (it doesn\u2019t slide), and he throws a fastball from a low arm slot that can confuse hitters. Look for the M\u2019s to either score seven thousand runs or be no-hit.<\/p>\n
TV: Mariners TV and FOR FREE over the air on KING 5 and affiliated PNW stations. Aaron Goldsmith and Dave Valle are on the call, with Ryan Rowland-Smith serving as the field reporter.<\/p>\n
Radio: 710 AM Seattle Sports with good ol\u2019 Rick Rizzs and Gary Hill Jr. on the call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a very bad and nasty 1-5 road trip, the Mariners return home for a little 4-game set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,77143,38422,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-672788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattle-mariners-discussion","14":"tag-seattle-mariners-game-threads","15":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116382841986459897","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}