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Seattle Mariners Notebook: A look at impressive win over Dodgers

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Seattle Mariners Notebook: A look at impressive win over Dodgers


The lineup posted in the Seattle Mariners’ clubhouse Wednesday had the near look of a regular season lineup, with expected starters filling the top seven spots for the game against the Dodgers that afternoon.

Servais on Mariners’ singular focus: ‘Let’s win the West’

When the Dodgers sent over their lineup, there was a buzz as they ran out something very close to what should be their lineup when they open the season on March 20 in South Korea against the Padres.

While the Mariners are in the middle of spring games, the Dodgers and Padres started early due to their series abroad. Not exactly an even playing field, but in spring training, that doesn’t matter. It also doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun.

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“Dodgers lineup?” Mariners manager Scott Servais was asked in his morning meeting with the media.

“You see their lineup?” Servais fired back. “Ohtani in it?”

Yeah.

“Mookie?”

He is.

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“Freddie?”

Yep.

“Yamamoto? Perfect! That’s exactly what we want. (Heck) yeah. It fires me up.”

Emphasis on the “fun” part. Nobody here needs to be reminded these are just spring training games. Still, it doesn’t hurt to have a challenge, and the Mariners responded with the pitchers holding Shohei Ohtani hitless in his three plate appearances (credit an assist to Mitch Haniger, as we’ll get to), and the hitters getting to the No. 1 free agent pitching acquisition of the offseason, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, an opponent they had never seen before.

“Really good game. I thought probably our best all around game all spring,” Servais said after the Mariners’ 8-1 win.

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Seattle Mariners 8, Los Angeles Dodgers 1: Box score

The highlight for Servais was his offense making an adjustment to Yamamoto. Things didn’t look too promising with Yamamoto striking out J.P. Crawford, Julio Rodríguez and Jorge Polanco in the first inning. In fact, the only bit of “success” against the Dodgers’ new addition that the lineup had the first time through was a Ty France walk.

Second time around, a different story. A Crawford two-out single in the third seemed a small victory. In the fourth, however, the damage came with Polanco, Mitch Garver and Haniger all singling early in the count. France then hit a single to left that scored two and the Mariners were up and running.

When all was said and done, the Mariners scored four runs on eight hits off Yamamoto, with the top six hitters in the lineup all recording at least one hit against him. What was it the Mariners saw?

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“His delivery is very unique,” Servais said. “Most of the Japanese pitchers are more deliberate over the rubber. He kind of rushes through it, he speeds you up. I think once our guys got a chance to see it, they made good adjustments.”

Later in the game, the offense came from the young set. In what was perhaps a bit of a preview for the Mariners’ Spring Breakout game on Friday afternoon that will pit their top prospects against the Padres’ top prospects, Servais replaced the starters due up in the top of the seventh inning with the trio of first-rounders from the 2023 MLB Draft and Lazaro Montes to follow.

The move did not disappoint, with Montes, the Mariners’ No. 4 ranked prospect according to MLB.com, knocking in Colt Emerson (No. 3 prospect) and Tai Peete (No. 7) with a triple to right.

On the pitching side, Casey Lawrence got a nod for the surprise start as he threw four scoreless innings, allowing four hits and no walks while striking out one. After Lawrence, a string of relievers who are either inked into the bullpen or battling for an open spot followed and held the Dodgers to just one run. A good day all around.

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Seattle Mariners notes

• Haniger made a couple of good plays in right field, including a leaping catch at the wall to deny Ohtani a hit.

• Servais once again pointed to Tyson Miller as a reliever who is climbing up the ranks in the bullpen battle.

• A good to great sight? Andrés Muñoz’s velocity. Not the fastball, mind you, but the slider, which came in at 90 mph multiple times in his one inning of work. We did not see much of that last year.

• Bryan Woo was originally slated to start Wednesday’s game, but the Mariners had some maneuverability built into their starting schedule and elected to push him back a day to give him and others a break. Woo will now start Thursday against the Brewers, with Emerson Hancock following against the Angels on Friday, then Luis Castillo and George Kirby pitching in split-squad games Saturday.

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Roster moves

The Mariners re-assigned five players to minor league camp:

• Left-handed pitcher Kirby Snead
• Catcher Harry Ford
• Infielders Tyler Locklear, Cole Tucker, Cole Young

More Seattle Mariners coverage

• Gregory Santos has setback, but may have avoided worse injury
• Mariners Notebook: Good developments with Gilbert, Urías
• Ryne Stanek shares his take on going from rival Astros to M’s
• Mariners officially sign Stanek, but Jackson Kowar out for year
• Who five of the Seattle Mariners’ biggest X-factors for 2024 are

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Seattle, WA

M.A. Vignola's goal keeps Angel City in playoff contention with win over Seattle

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M.A. Vignola's goal keeps Angel City in playoff contention with win over Seattle


M.A. Vignola‘s first-half goal was all Angel City FC needed to earn a 1-0 road win over the Seattle Reign at Lumen Field.

Alyssa Thompson did a give-and-go with Vignola, who finished into the right corner in the 34th minute.

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Thompson has five goals and two assists in the last seven games.

On Thursday, Angel City (7-12-4) was fined $200,000 and docked three points for violating the NWSL salary cap. The win keeps them in playoff contention.

The Reign (5-13-5) fell to 12th place.



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Seattle Mariners send prospect to Rays to complete Arozarena deal

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Seattle Mariners send prospect to Rays to complete Arozarena deal


The Seattle Mariners’ trade for left fielder Randy Arozarena is now complete.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan: The 3 positions Seattle Mariners need to address

The team announced Friday that minor league starting pitcher Ty Cummings is headed to the Tampa Bay Rays as the player to be named later from the July 26 deal that also sent outfielder Aidan Smith and right-handed starting pitcher Brody Hopkins to the Rays in exchange for Arozarena.

Cummings, 22, was a seventh-round pick out of Campbell University in 2023. He’s outside of Seattle’s top 30 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline.

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In 25 starts with High-A Everett this season, Cummings went 4-5 with a 4.17 ERA, 1.41 WHIP and 124 strikeouts over 116 2/3 inning pitched. Opponents batted .263 off the right-hander.

Smith, 20, is now the No. 9 prospect and Hopkins, 22, the No. 12 prospect in the Rays’ organization.

The Mariners made the deal for Arozarena, a 2023 All-Star selection, with hopes he’d help spark a struggling offense that played a major factor in the team squandering a 10-game lead in the American League West. However, Seattle still fell short of the playoffs at 85-77 and finished one game behind the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers for the second and third wild card berths.

In 54 games after the trade to Seattle, Arozarena slashed .231/.356/.377 with 14 doubles, five home runs, 23 RBIs, four stolen bases, 28 walks and 68 strikeouts.

Arozarena is under club control through the 2026 season.

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More on the Seattle Mariners

• Mariners name Kevin Martinez as president of business operations
• Morosi: What the Mariners’ priority should be this offseason
• Mariners Stats: Where players, team finished on leaderboards
• Morosi: How Mariners can approach contracts of struggling vets
• Mariners manager Dan Wilson reflects on stretch run, looks ahead
• The key things Dipoto said about Seattle Mariners’ offseason plans





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5 Giants-Seahawks questions: How good is Seattle, and more

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5 Giants-Seahawks questions: How good is Seattle, and more


The New York Giants face the Seattle Seahawks for the third straight season on Sunday. Out ‘five questions’ segment this week is with John Gilbert of SB Nation’s Field Gulls fills us in on things we should know about the Seahawks.

Ed: What are the Seahawks four games into the season? Three victories over teams that, honestly, are probably not very good. A loss against an excellent Detroit team in which Seattle gave up 42 points. What is your assessment?

John: You pretty much nailed my assessment. They’ve beaten the three bad teams they’ve played and they gave up 42 and lost by double digits to the serious contender they faced off against.

Most Seattle fans will argue that the defense is better than they played on Monday against the Lions because of injuries to several key players, including Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy, Boye Mafe, Uchenna Nwosu and Jerome Baker. However, even before injuries knocked Mafe, Williams and Murphy out the Hawks struggled at times to stop the run game of the Patriots. With that said, in terms of overall metrics, while the defense has been good, they’ve done it against one of the easiest schedules in the NFL, and obviously the rest of the schedule won’t be nearly as friendly, but hopefully it won’t be as rough as it was against the Lions.

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Ed: Leonard Williams was a very good player for the Giants. How has he done for Seattle? How important is he to the Seahawks’ defense?

John: Williams has been phenomenal for the Seahawks, and easily one of the best players on the defense both in the back half of the 2023 season and before getting injured in Week 3.

He was second on the defense in total pressures before getting hurt, and is still tied for the team lead in quarterback hits even though he’s only played five snaps in the last two games. He was limited in practice on Thursday, but that’s a lot better than not practicing like last week when he was inactive for the matchup against Detroit, so hopefully he’ll be back in action this weekend.

Ed: If you could take one player off the Giants’ roster and put him in the Seattle lineup who would it be? Why?

John: Last season when you asked me this my answer was Leonard Williams and then a month later the Seahawks traded for Williams and the rest is history.

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Thus, with the knowledge that Seahawks general manager John Schneider is going to trade for whoever I answer, I’d like to go ahead and advise Giants fans to enjoy Malik Nabers for the last few weeks he’ll be wearing a Giants uniform before Joe Schoen ships him off to Seattle.

The reason to grab Nabers is not just that he’s a phenomenal young talent, but also he brings a factor to the Seattle offense that is currently lacking outside of DK Metcalf. Metcalf’s speed is no secret, but the Seahawks have a lack of other receivers who can take the top off a defense. Tyler Lockett and Jaxon Smith-Njigba are good, but they aren’t burners who scare defenses deep. The only speedy receiver on the roster outside of Metcalf is Dareke Young, a key member of the special teams who has played just 11 offensive snaps through the first four games.

Long story short, offenses need receivers whose skill sets complement one another, and the Seahawks have Metcalf and a bunch of possession receivers. It’s a great group of receivers, but there is a decided lack of a receiver who can challenge a defense deep and pull the safeties back when they want to target Metcalf in the underneath and intermediate areas.

Ed: Tell us about a couple of under-the-radar Seattle players we should be aware of on Sunday.

John: On the offensive side of the ball, it’s got to be the guards. Laken Tomlinson is the starting left guard and he’s been bad. Anthony Bradford is the starting right guard and he’s been bad and heavily penalized. Christian Haynes is the backup who has struggled when he’s played, but he’s the rookie third round draft pick, so he’s the lifeblood and savior for many fans who have been calling for him to see increased snaps. He saw his most extensive playing time in Week 4 against the Lions rotating with Bradford at right guard, and the porousness of the line at both guard positions to this point in the season means watching the interior of the offensive line is crucial every game.

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On the defensive side of the ball, the outside linebackers are an exciting group. Uchenna Nwosu is the veteran of the bunch, but he has yet to play this season after suffering a knee injury in the preseason. There is hope he could see his first action against the Giants, but even if he doesn’t go Boye Mafe and Derick Hall are a couple of exciting young players who have shown flashes at times of having the ability to develop into players who can make a serious impact on a game.

Ed: The Seahawks are significant favorites on Sunday. Is there anything about this game that concerns you? Is there a path to victory for the Giants?

John: It’s the NFL so it’s always any given Sunday, so there’s always concern that a team can pull an upset.

In this instance the biggest concern is Seattle either coming out flat after the Monday night letdown to the Lions, or looking ahead to the Week 6 Thursday Night Football game against the San Francisco 49ers.



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