Seattle has been hovering around .500, and begins a three game set against Detroit, where they hope to get hot offensively before they face much hotter teams in that of Boston and Atlanta on this road trip.

The Mariners are coming out of an off day embarking on a nine game road trip, with the first stop being in Detroit to face the Tigers for a three game set, and make sure to check out Jake Mailhot’s series preview for a full breakdown of how these two teams matchup. On the mound for Seattle is Marco Gonzales who has been solid in most of his starts this season, and he’ll be up against Matthew Boyd who has been decidedly less solid so far, but did manage to notch a quality start in his last outing, a win against the Cardinals.

Lineups:

JP Crawford continues to captain the ship from his recent move to the leadoff spot, and today brings another new spot for Julio Rodríguez this season with being in the three hole behind France. Tom Murphy is handling duties behind the dish, A.J. Pollock will be representing the designated hitter, and José Caballero will be ninth in the order as the starting second basemen, in against the lefty Boyd.

Today’s game info:

First pitch will be at 3:40 pm Pacific, with Dave Sims and Dan Wilson on the call for the television broadcast on ROOT SPORTS, and Rick Rizzs and Aaron Goldsmith handling the radio duties on Seattle Sports (710 AM).

Today in Mariners history:

• 1984 - Jim Beattie checked his old teammates, the New York Yankees, on just six hits and recorded his second shutout, 5-0. Rookie sensation Alvin Davis suffered a broken nose in the 5^th inning on a ground ball off the bat of NY’s Steve Kemp.
• 1996 - Randy Johnson would make his last start of the year (back injury) working five innings for the 8-5 win vs. Kansas City and improving his record to 5-0. Alex Rodriguez homered twice and drove in five runs in the victory.
• 2011 - Jason Vargas tossed 9.0 shutout innings, but the Mariners lost 2-1 at Baltimore in 12 innings. Vargas became the 4th pitcher in club history to record a no-decision while throwing at least 9.0 shutout innings, joining Tim Belcher (6/4/95 at BOS), Erik Hanson (10.0 IP, 8/1/90 at OAK) & Mike Moore (6/29/88 vs. TEX).
• 2014 - The Mariners jumped out to a 9-0 lead after 3.0 innings en route to a 12-5 win over the Rays. Felix Hernandez made his first start vs. Tampa Bay since his perfect game on Aug. 15, 2012, and earned the win allowing 4 runs in 6.2 innings. Mike Zunino, Stefen Romero and Justin Smoak hit home runs for the Mariners.
• 2015 - The Mariners belted 6 home runs (Seager, Morrison, Zunino-2x, Ruggiano, Cruz) for the first time since 2004 to cruise to an 11-4 win over the San Diego Padres…2nd time Seattle hit 6 homers in a game at T-Mobile Park and 13th time in club history to hit 6+ home runs in a game…the Mariners matched a season-high with 11 runs scored...Mike Zunino recorded the 2nd multi-home run game of his career…James Paxton earned his first victory of the season, tossing 6 scoreless innings, scattering 3 hits and striking out 5.
• 2018 – The Mariners play the 74^th doubleheader in club history, after being rained out in Detroit the previous night. With manager Scott Servais attending his daughter’s graduation, bench coach Manny Acta managed the team, with Ichiro Suzuki as his bench coach. The Mariners dropped the first game vs. the Tigers 3-4 but won the nightcap 9-5.

Random additional info:

Last checked the Detroit Tigers don’t have anything named after them or their communities in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, so I’m going to chalk this up as a sign from the baseball gods that good things are likely to happen today for Mariner’s fans and the LL commentariat in general.