The Mariners draw a tough opponent in their quest for their first series win of 2026. The Yankees of New York, New York look every bit the force of nature they’ve been the past few years, with Aaron Judge already climbing the home run leaderboard.
In their attempt to win game one, Seattle will hand the ball to Luis Castillo for his first start of the season. It’s a compelling first opponent for Castillo, who’s pitched some gems against the Yanks, most notably his home debut after being traded to Seattle in 2022,
when he pitched eight shutout innings.
His counterpart will be Ryan Weathers, who was picked directly after Jarred Kelenic in the 2018 Draft. He’s looked the part of a fifth/sixth starter when he’s been healthy, though his CSW% (called strikes plus whiffs divided by total pitches) has always run ahead of his strikeout rate, even though those stats are generally tightly correlated. Maybe there’s still more in there. FanGraphs has a write-up of his new pitch this week.
Lineups!
Facing the lefty Weathers, the Mariners will turn back to their righty platoon bats, with Rob Refsnyder and Víctor Robles getting starts at DH and right field. Cal will get his first off day, which makes sense to do today, since it means Garver will face a lefty and Cal will face the top of the Yankees’ rotation over the next couple days. Cal’s absence means we will not see the Refsnyder-Cal-Julio top three that we saw Saturday night against a lefty starter, but I’ll still plug my proposal to shuffle the top three against lefties to be Julio-Refsnyder-Cal.
Aaron Judge is having the worst season of his career with a 53.8% strikeout rate. Pathetic. The Yankees seem to feel this is just the result of only having played three games so far, so it hasn’t cost him his spot in the lineup yet. He’ll bat second tonight.
Pre-Game Reading
- More on the Yanks in the series preview from Jake
- Max’s Minor League Roundups are back baby! We do a lot here at LL, but I think this is something you truly can’t get anywhere else.
- KING 5 (KGW in Portland, KREM in Spokane, and KTVB in Boise) will broadcast ten games this season for free on basic cable. They will still be simulcast on Mariners TV
- Kate’s recap of yesterday’s coming out party for Emerson Hancock
- The story on the Mariners new Sunday Steelhead uniforms
Game Info
First pitch: 6:40 PDT
TV: Mariners TV, which you can a subscription to online or watch on several cable networks. Kate’s got the details.
Radio: 710 KIRO, in Rick Rizzs’s final season
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