Emerson Hancock stakes his claim to the sixth starter role as Mariners fall to White Sox, 18-9

Baby Mariners make a game out of it late but Mariners can’t quite come all the way back

It feels like Emerson Hancock and Logan Evans entered camp each vying for the role of right-handed sixth starter for the Mariners (Jhonathan Díaz is the left-handed sixth starter, a role that will have to be surgically removed from him). While not as intriguing as the Matt Brash - George Kirby battle for the fifth starter a few years ago (remember those days?), it’s nonetheless been one I’ve been watching with interest, given Hancock’s draft pedigree vs. Evans’s recent surge. Today, Hancock seemed like the clear winner of the day, turning around a shaky start and showing off some of the new tricks in his bag.

Hancock was searching for his command to start his outing, throwing 23 pitches with just 11 strikes, and having to have minor-leaguer Juan Burgos bail him out of the first inning (Burgos needed just one pitch to retire Joey Gallo on a popout). Hancock again threw his new, slower slider, striking out Luis Robert Jr. looking on the pitch for one of his first two outs, but gave up back-to-back doubles: one to former Mariner Josh Rojas, who pounced on a 93.5 mph four-seamer, and one bad-luck double on the new slider to Lenyn Sosa that rolled down the left field line at a spritely 48.9 mph exit velocity but nonetheless resulted in two runs.

Hancock came back for a second inning and was much sharper than in the first, as he needed just nine pitches to get his three outs. Hancock ended his outing with three straight sliders, all 81 mph or under, to minor-leaguer Wilfred Veras for a three-pitch strikeout: one swinging, and two looking, locking up Veras for the third strike as he seemed to give up on the pitch right before it crossed the plate. Statcast says this pitch had 14” of horizontal break, which equals his max break on the pitch from his last outing; he bettered that today, throwing the pitch for a max of 17” of horizontal break.

Logan Evans took over for Hancock in the third and didn’t fare as well. He struggled to put away hitters, getting into long battles that ended in walks and one eight-pitch battle with Robert Jr. that ended in La Pantera demolishing a ball onto the left-field berm for a 4-0 White Sox lead. It seemed like Evans’s pitches off the plate didn’t tempt the Sox batters into swings, and the ones on the plate resulted in contact, albeit mostly foul balls. Evans had to be relieved by 2024 UDFA Gage Boehm, who failed to staunch the bleeding, and suddenly the White Sox were leading 10-0 by the end of the third inning. No need to go into much more detail than that. Gary Hill spent a lot of time talking about the English Premier League in the fourth inning, if you want to take the temperature of this game.

Will Klein had the most dominant inning of any Mariners reliever today by results, setting down the side in order with two strikeouts, including a three-pitch punchout of Austin Slater where he threw two curveballs up in the zone, getting Slater to blow a challenge on one and chasing after the other. He ended his inning with an exclamation point, getting Joey Gallo chasing after 95 at the top of the zone. Klein is angling hard for the Matt Brash Replacement role in the back end of the Mariners bullpen and so far feels like the favorite.

The Mariners starting offense was again quiet today, although Victor Robles got close to getting them on the board in the bottom of the third with a well-struck double (112.5 EV!) that moved Ben Williamson, who had walked, to third. Boooo, Kris Negrón! Send Big Billiamson! I want to see how he runs! An anti-Sun Visor award for you, sir. Manny Acta would never. Robles also made a pair of nice running catches in right field, which would earn him the Sun Visor Award for the day if not for what happened later.

The Mariners did get a run in the fourth, in the most unexciting way possible: Luke Raley reached on an error, advanced to third on another error, and scored on a double play. Gary Hill and Rick Rizzs argued that you should still get an RBI if you hit into a double play and the run scores. This recap will end here so I can fly to Arizona to demonstrate, with charts and graphs, why and how they are wrong.

Other notes:

• Andrés Muñoz made his first appearance of the spring, and while he didn’t throw the new kick change, he did throw between 99-101 mph. He gave up a run on a pair of doubles, making it 11-1, but also ended his inning freezing Luis Robert Jr. on 101 mph.
• That pitch to Robert Jr. by Muñoz was initially called a ball, but Cal Raleigh challenged, getting it overturned for strike three. That was the second time in the inning Cal had challenged, winning both of them. I wonder if a pitcher like Muñoz who throws so hard gets an advantage from the ABS system; of course, that depends on having a great catcher like Cal who knows the strike zone.
• Plate appearance of the day award goes to Blake Hunt, who worked a seven-pitch at-bat in the sixth that ended in a solo home run up on the berm. Hunt fell behind 0-2 and battled his way back to evening the count, fouling off a couple of pitches in the same location before turning on the third slider he’d seen.
• Mitch Garver continued his strong string with another two hits, including a solid line-drive single in the sixth.
• In the seventh, Jesse Hahn gave up the 12th and 13th runs of the day as Andre Lipcius destroyed a hanging curve for a two-run homer. And then the 14th and 15th runs of the day. And the 16th and 17th. Jesse please. I miss my kids. (my cats)
• On the bright side, 2024 draftee Harrison Kreiling had a much better outing than last time, coming in to stop the bleeding in the seventh. Honorary Sun Visor Award to you, Harrison.
• Fellow 2024 draftee Charlie Beilenson gave up the 18th run of the day on a solo home run in the ninth, but that’s all he gave up, partially thanks to a superb defensive play by shortstop prospect Felnin Celesten, who takes home today’s Sun Visor Award for sparking a dramatic ninth-inning near comeback, starting with this play:

The reward for watching to the end of this stinker of a game (and reading to the end of this recap) was getting to see some fun play from Seattle’s young prospects. Celesten followed up that play with his first hit of the spring, a solidly-stroked line drive single where he lofted a low slider into left field, and came around to score thanks to back-to-back doubles from the Rainiers tandem of Ryan Bliss and Cade Marlowe. The big blast came courtesy of Lazaro Montes’s second home run of the spring, a two-run shot that made the game a slightly-more-respectable 18-6.

But Celesten wasn’t done bedazzling his new visor yet, as he followed his first hit of spring training with his first extra-base hit of spring training. After falling behind 0-2 fouling off two pitches on the plate, Celesten battled back to work a full count off emergency reliever Jordan Mikel, who had come in to try to get the final two outs of the game, and then pounced on a changeup on the plate for a two-run double. It was an extremely disciplined plate appearance from the 19-year-old Celesten, working against a Double-A experienced reliever. And that’s why you watch to the end of spring training games, even the bad ones.