If you were looking for a game to sell you some possibility on the young Seattle Mariners roster, tonight was the night.
Facing the reigning NL Cy Young winner and newly highest annually paid pitcher in MLB history, Trevor Bauer, the M’s were stymied for the first few innings despite some sharp contact from LF Taylor Trammell and SS J.P. Crawford. Seattle’s near full A-team put together some decent plate appearances over the first four innings, but had just a single hit to show for it.
And then came the fifth.
To hear Bauer tell it, after four good innings, he stopped focusing in the 5th after working on sequencing in the first four innings and he was just trying to get his pitch count up to the limit where he’d be pulled in the 5th.