Mariners and Cubs tie 8-8 in perfect Spring Training distillation

Spring training is nothing, except when it is not. These games have the energy of television beer softball competitions, complete with loose players shooting shit on the bench, guys convincing themselves that they can stretch each other in a double, entries almost stopping whenever they get boring and games ending in a draw because time is running out. It’s really wonderful and I hope nothing changes about that.

That said, teams like the Mariners are often in the unfortunate position of having to take spring training seriously. While his opponent – the current champion of the Central NL Cubs – is definitely in the mood to win now, Seattle has to use the month of March to find out what they have. Sometimes this means that Ljay Newsome and his 15.2 MLB innings face Rizzo, Bryant, Báez and several other World Series winners. Sometimes this means that young players that Mariners will trust for years on end are completely confused by the two-seater 86 MPH. Today, we received all these things in the first hour! Spring training is better than most films.

In the first inning, Kyle Lewis put together the type of hitting that showed his advanced approach. Coming out of a deep hole, Lewis worked a hike against Zach Davies avoiding the temptation of his fast lollipop balls that cut and dip around the attack zone. The other drivers of the Mariners’ ad campaign train were not so lucky in their first appearances. In the second round, Jarred Kelenic rolled in a curved first-pitch ball into harmless terrain. Cal Raleigh and Taylor Trammell also struggled with Davies’ low-speed offers. Raleigh hit back on his first trip to the plate, while Trammell showed Kelenic-like aggression, achieving the same result.

On the defensive side, Newsome missed the move to Joc Pederson a lot, giving a young fan on the side his first memory of spring.

Later in the broadcast, poor Ljay, famous for him in a nutshell, was forced not only to speak to a camera for a national audience, but also to relive the home run he allowed. Newsome provided some interesting insights into the pitch, mentioning that he was trying to launch the “blow to the ball” change and instead launched… blow for more central blow. Other than that, Ljay said a lot while speaking so little. We learned that your mother’s name is Linda. Bless him.

Things got bigger after that, both in terms of Spring Training’s hilarity and in exciting moves that induce emojis. First, throw a party at Jake Fraley. To his credit, Fraley went too far to the left to make an athletic footprint on a Rizzo line drive early in the game. He also showed a very strong throwing arm to arrest Báez who was trying to reach second base as an overzealous schoolboy. So, he did it.

The competition for external vacancies on the Opening Day list is very busy. Although Fraley still looks like the most likely left defender on April 1, there is no doubt that Braden Bishop is a better defender and Jarred Kelenic is a better hitter. Do not believe me? See Jarred and his quadruple ceps pushing this ball through the wind and over the fence.

I will record and say that Jarred Kelenic is good at baseball. He’s almost certainly better than Jake Fraley, and he could at least spark a spark for this list. Of course, that means he will probably start the season at Everett by working on his first base defense. While the Mariners continue to conduct this strange auction to compete for time between the older players and the players in the minor leagues, Taylor Trammell raised his own card and entered the bidding in style.

As soon as the headliners left the game, paving the way for the types Jordan Cowan, Eric Filia and Aaron Fletcher, Spring Training really caught on. Mariner Vinny Nittoli pitcher – one 25^º– chosen in 2014, which was reacquired from Toronto – failed to finish his inning before both teams decided to just start and move on.

In case you are wondering, yes, he is Italian. I could say from Vinny Nittoli, as well as the social media part, which includes retweeting DJ Pauly D. Nittoli showed some very good things, the problem is that it always ended in the fleshy part of the dish. Here we see an example of this, when Nittoli faced fellow countryman Anthony Rizzo and allowed a tasty two-race tater (sorry, gnocchi). Just like a’mama used to do.

As talent on the field became less and less ready for the big league, ESPN tried to remind its viewers that MLB players were really there, or at least more or less. Jason Heyward was kind enough to give a golf cart interview, where he was hiding from the scary idea that it might rain at some point in the future. I thought everything went very well. No notes.

People continued to be hit by the pitches as the afternoon progressed. Minor league pitchers, while great at using hockey numbers, are really bad at hitting. Dylan Moore, who was also hit in the head by a pitch, was briefly shaken during the interview, as he watched teammate Sam Travis take one to the summit. After Travis somehow stood up all the time, dodged and stayed in the game, ESPN was able to return to its regular schedule.

It’s more like that.

Aside from Cal Raleigh well hit in the gap and the explosion of Jack Reinheimer’s ninth inning that tied things up, I couldn’t say much about what happened at the end of the game. I was mainly focused on a bag of chips and pita sauce.

Bitchin ‘sauce, if you’re reading this, please let me promote your product in exchange for money. I think it’s very good and would do a great job.