6/23/21: SEA vs COL open game thread

The Mariners close out a quick two-game series with Colorado before enjoying another blissful off-day

With yesterday’s win, coming on the heels of sweeping the Tampa Bay Rays, who continue to labor under a cursed amulet that renders them powerless against the Seattle Mariners, the Mariners tied their longest win streak of the season at five games, which they set back in May after sweeping Texas in a four-game set and then winning the first game of the Oakland series. Today the Mariners have a chance to make it a season-high six games against the Rockies, who are objectively Not A Good Team, and yet the Mariners needed some late-inning heroics from Shed Long Jr. to sneak past the Rockies last night for a 2-1 win. Today doesn’t appear to be any easier; last night’s contest had the odds firmly in favor of the Mariners, while today’s projection is close to an even split between Justus Sheffield and Germán Márquez, who is the Rockies’ best pitcher this season despite an inflated walk rate. Hopefully the Mariners batters will be patient and try to build up Márquez’s pitch count to get into the soft underbelly of that second-worst-in-baseball bullpen.

Jake Fraley gets a day off and Ty France and his ailing wrist get a day off from the field while Taylor Trammell will be charged with manning center on a sunny day in T-Mobile Park.

Also of note, this is the game where we could have seen two Sheffield brothers pitching in a game, but Jordan Sheffield, taken this year by Colorado in the Rule 5 draft, is unfortunately on the IL with a lat strain. We did get this cute pic tho:

Today’s game starts at 1:10 PT and can be found on all the normal bat-channels (710 ESPN on the radio, ROOT Sports NW on TV, and on Mariners dot com or the Gameday app if your boss is a jerk). It’s one of several games happening in the earlier hours of the day for us here on the west coast—there are five other contests either currently underway or about to start, including the Pirates-White Sox game that started at 9:30 AM PT—so we don’t even get to be the free game of the day; that honor goes to the Giants-Angels game, starting at the same time.