Gone are the 7 inning games, the “rollover inning,” and the weird take-the-pitcher-out-in-one-inning-but-bring-them-back-in-the-next. The games are going to start looking a bit more normal from here on out. Adding to the verisimilitude is the fact that we’ve got a night game, and a night game against a division rival.
But it’s not a perfect simulacrum. For one, the M’s start Robert Dugger, an add-on in the Dee Strange-Gordon trade in late 2017 (the larger prize was Nick Neidert). Dugger was coming off a good year in the Midwest League, and went on to pitch quite well in AA for the Marlins.