The Red Sox look to bounce back into the win column when they face the upstart Seattle Mariners tonight at Fenway Park (7:10 p.m., NESN, MLBN out of market, MLB.tv free game of the day) behind Nick Pivetta.
Justin Dunn starts for Seattle, the young pitcher having matched Pivetta in style and substance so far this season. That means good base numbers with iffier ones underneath, and both righties will hope to stem the tide of regression tonight.
The most notable feature of the Mariners’s lineup is who’s not in it: top-5 prospect Jarred Kelenic is working at the alternate site even after spending the necessary number of days there to ensure another year of team control, likely to buttress Seattle’s argument that he’s still “not ready” after losing their team president this winter when he said, explicitly, that the lack of urgency would be strictly control-related. He said it because it’s true, and only his big mouth is retroactively keeping Kelenic out of the lineup to this point. (They are almost certainly not calling him up yet so they don’t get sued.) Thanks, I think?
The Red Sox roll out the A team of sorts, at least among veterans. Marwin Gonzalez is at first and Hunter Renfroe and Franchy Cordero are in the outfield, and the rest is all standard-issue 2021 fare. The Mariners may not have Kelenic, but they have the 2020 Rookie of the Year in Kyle Lewis, who debuted Tuesday after sitting out the early portion of the year with an injury. They also have rookie Taylor Trammell, who’s cool and for whom the Sox ships trade.
Wait what? Sorry. Here are the lineups:
Game 20 vs. Mariners
Lineup spot | Mariners | Red Sox |
---|---|---|
Lineup spot | Mariners | Red Sox |
1 | Mitch Haniger, RF | Kiké Hernández, 2B |
2 | Ty France, DH | Alex Verdugo, CF |
3 | Kyle Seager, 3B | J.D. Martinez, DH |
4 | Kyle Lewis, CF | Xander Bogaerts, SS |
5 | Evan White, 1B | Rafael Devers, 3B |
6 | Taylor Trammell, LF | Christian Vázquez, C |
7 | Luis Torrens, C | Marwin Gonzalez, 1B |
8 | Dylan Moore, 2B | Hunter Renfroe, RF |
9 | J.P. Crawford, SS | Franchy Cordero, LF |
SP | Justin Dunn, RHP | Nick Pivetta, RHP |