Of all of baseball’s many colorful expressions, I think my favorite is referring to the first game of the season as a “lid-lifter,” evocative as it is of standing over the stove with a pot of something that’s been simmering all day, lifting the lid and getting that rush of complex aromas that have been mingling and marinating and making something new. As the Mariners prepare for their 2020 lid-lifter, the particular combination of ingredients has been announced and it is...not the same as the groceries we’ve been seeing in training camp.
First of all, even as we were led to expect this, it’s pretty wild to see just two names listed under “outfielders” and the rest “INF/OF.