8/11/18: Open Game Thread

Two games down, time to get greedy?

Justin Verlander. Gerrit Cole. Two games against two of the very best pitchers in all of MLB. If you’d told me two days ago that the M’s were going to get shellacked in each contest, I would have nodded sadly. After all, this team has been in a serious tailspin for the last month-plus.

But here we are, on a cloudy Saturday afternoon in Seattle, playing softbaLL with each other after two spectacular wins with our new-look lineup in place. Not bad!

And though the Astros’ rotation is full of studs, today and tomorrow might be the weak links of their five-man cast. Charlie Morton has certainly been good this season, with a 2.81 ERA and 167 strikeouts in 131.1 innings, but our man Wade LeBlanc has been surprisingly strong as well.

Lineups!

Lots of lefties getting the start today, which makes sense given Morton’s splits (.262 wOBA against righties, .310 against righties). It’s also comforting to see Haniger-Span-Segura-Cruz at the top of the order, since that combination has worked well in the last few games. Let’s see how this one plays out!

P.S. Great to see so many of you at SoftbaLL today!

Game time: 4:10pm PT

TV: ROOT Sports or MLB.tv

Radio: 710 ESPN