[pauwoo]

New York Yankees (44-39, .530, 3rd AL East) @ Seattle Mariners (61-24, .718, 1st AL West)
The Yankees are a good team mired in a better division who are coming into town on a 2-game skid and with a 5-5 record overall over their last ten tilts. The offense has been humming along – 1st in OBP, OPS, wOBA, and HRs – and looks to be worth every penny the organization has paid to assemble this collection of bashers. It’s the pitching, however, where things have not been wonderful… 12th in Starters ERA, 11th in RA, 9th in Bullpen ERA, and a middling 7th in FIP. Here we have a tale of two cities – one a rip-roaring, home run hitting, crotch-grabbing collection of ne'er-do-wells bent on embarrassing your pitching staff and the other a polite, eager to appease, group of hurlers that are more than willing to serve up a few meatballs to keep their opponents fed, fat, and happy… our mission here, should we choose to accept it, is to pitch them tough enough to keep the bottom of the order from beating us while lining up to the buffet their staff serves us like a group of seafaring scallywags who haven’t been fed for days.

86 of 162: Corey Kluber (5-2, 6.78) @ Matthew Boyd (7-7, 4.43)
Loss, 4-3. A real heartbreaker here… we were doing the dirt early, plying our trade like a tightly knit unit fresh out of trade school until New York’s Luke Voight, who had been hitless in three attempts, approached the plate in the top of the 9th, with the bases-loaded, and met the moment head-on with a moonshot, MUSTARD, AND RYE-BREAD worthy GRAND SLAM that would, ultimately, spell our doom. Weird day for Boyd – he gave us 5.1 innings of 1-hit, 0 earned ball while doling out 8 free passes to pair with his 5 Ks – and a rough day at the plate for Kyle Lewis who was afforded every opportunity to make something happen for us but ultimately left 7 runners stranded over the course of the contest.

Elsewhere: Jurickson Profar, of the Orange County Angels, went 3 for 4 with 2 jacks, 3 riblets, and 2 runs in his crews dominate 9-0 victory over the Boston Red Sox. Angels Starter, Andrew Heaney, also came out smelling roses in this one as he gave the Halos 8 innings of 4-hit, 0 earned filth to keep them in a position to grab the victory.

87 of 162: Deivi Garcia (2-6, 7.50) @ Aaron Sanchez (8-0, 2.10)
Loss, 3-1. Suddenly our offense is anemic, and their pitching staff is putting it down like the baseball punditry thought they would at the beginning of the season… for our part, we could only muster 4 hits and 1 run that came on an early-ish Kolten Wong solo shot. And, again, the Yanks got to us late, charging 2 runs to Darwinzon Hernandez’s account during the top of the 8th frame before handing the ball to Aroldis Chapman who registered his 300th save as a major leaguer. Also, Meetch strained his oblique during the game… off to the IL with him for the next 10 days… TnT returns to the fold in his stead.

Elsewhere: Isiah Kiner-Falefa, PT Bronze Tourney Team superstar and current SS for the Tejas Rangers, went 3 for 4 with a two-bagger, a jack, 3 RBI, and 2 runs for his club as they thoroughly dismantled the beleaguered Detroit Tigers by a score of 9-3.

88 of 162: Gerrit “Sticky Fingers” Cole (4-8, 4.60) @ Logan Gilbert (7-0, 3.11)
Win, 5-4. We managed to eke this one out and held on to our lead late as Logan went 8 strong for us while allowing 4 earned and recording 10 Ks… JOC came alive too – 2 for 3, 2 DING DONGS, 4 RBI, and 2 runs for everyone’s favorite good-time boy. He’d earn our PoTG distinction and now has 19 dingers on the year… Wong drove in our only other run, we swiped 2 bags as a unit, and David Robertson added his 20th save to the permanent record. We’ll take it – anything to avoid getting swept at home.

Elsewhere: Bobby Witt Jr, of the Kansas City Royals, did his best JOC PEDERSON impression today during his club's 6-2 win over the representative from Cleveland. During the contest, the young man went 2 for 4, put two balls over the fence, drove in 3 runs, and scored three times. With the win, KC improves to 47-40 on the year and are still very much in the WC race, jogging a mere 2 games off the pace set by the Orange County Halos…

Record: 62-26, .704, 1st AL West
Up Next: I Will likely post the complete set against OC tomorrow to get myself caught up on this thing…