“Seventeen hits? That’s all we got was seventeen god damn hits?”

“Brett you can’t say ‘god damn’ on the internet!”

“Don’t worry, nobody’s reading anyway…”

I hope Harry Doyle would be proud that I paraphrased him in reverse fashion. We’ll never know, though, because he’s a fictional character and the actor that played him, Brewers legend Bob Uecker, will probably never read this. So I’m going to get away with it!

It sure is fun when the Mariners score runs, isn’t it? More fun is when said runs force one of us to spend money on the team! Since I don’t want to bury the lede, I’ll link to Shane’s tweet, where he told Daniel Vogelbach that he would buy his jersey if he hit a home run tonight.

So be it, my son https://t.co/0YUG6dEQaq

— Shane Lantz (@ShaneMLantz) April 15, 2018

So be it, indeed, Shane. I am expecting you to wear your new Vogelbach jersey to the recording of Wednesday’s podcast. Yesterday, I wrote that it would be fun to see what it was like when Vogelbach put the barrel on a donger, since he missed the sweet spot of the bat with yesterday’s blast. Well, we don’t have to wonder anymore. Tonight’s blast traveled 433 feet and ended up landing OVER the target on the Hit it Here Café. Nice job, dude. The look on Nelson Cruz’s face in the featured image says it all.

The Mariners mashed three other taters during tonight’s 10-8 victory over the A’s. Mean Jean Segura hit one of the three-run variety in the second inning, then Mitch Haniger and Kyle Seager added solo blasts in the fifth and sixth innings. Seager, in fact, notched three hits to bring his season line up to .304/.353/.587, good for a 164 wRC+. I say good, because a 164 wRC+ is really, really good. Maybe I should’ve said great.

Less than great, though, were Marco Gonzales’ results. He finished the night allowing 4 runs in 3.1 innings to bring his season ERA up to an abysmal 8.25. Despite that, I’m not worried about the Gonzaga lefty. He struck out five while walking only one tonight, and four of the seven baserunners he put on came around to score. His BABIP against tonight was a highly unsustainable .500, which brings his season number up to an also-unsustainable .425.

I know that some may say that high of a number MAY be sustainable if you simply don’t have major league stuff, but Brent, I have to disagree with you here. Any pitcher notching 8.25 strikeouts per nine while walking 1.5 and keeping the ball on the ground 48% of the time clearly has good enough stuff to not deserve to allow 42.5% of their balls in play to go for hits. That number will come down, and I expect his results to start coming closer to matching his 4.13 FIP. It’s been a rough couple of starts, but Marco is gonna be just fine, everyone. Back away from the ledge.

Dan Altavilla and Chasen Bradford had good nights, but the three guys between them and Edwin Diaz certainly did not. Marc Rzepczynski surprisingly got the first two batters he faced out, but then gave up a single to Trevor Semien and a home run to Mark Canha, who entered the game with a career line of .213/.261/.332 against left-handed pitching. Scrabble has now faced 11 batters this season and allowed five of them to reach base. I’m a Jerry Dipoto defender, but Rzepczynski looked like a bad signing at the time, and has played out even more poorly than could have probably been expected. James Pazos needs to be the primary LOOGY yesterday.

Nick Vincent gave up Khris Davis’ 17^th career home run against the Mariners on his first pitch of the game tonight, and though Juan Nicasio’s velocity was improved from the start tonight, he too was bitten by the home run bug when Stephen Piscotty took him deep in the eighth.

Luckily, Edwin Diaz is unstoppable, and despite allowing an opposite field single to Jed Lowrie when he threw the bat at a 99 MPH fastball, he came right back to whiff Davis on four pitches to end the game—all of which were sliders.

The M’s turn to King Felix tomorrow as they try to get the sweep against the A’s and left-hander Sean Manaea, who is pretty decent. The good news is Guillermo Heredia will likely get the start, like he should get in every game this year, but again, that’s a post for another night. Enjoy the win, and bring your brooms to Safeco tomorrow at 1:10 p.m.