{"id":78813,"date":"2025-07-20T19:59:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T19:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/78813\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T19:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T19:59:15","slug":"mariners-game-99-preview-7-20-v-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/78813\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners Game #99 Preview: 7\/20 v. Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"6PC453\">If it feels like the Mariners have played a lot of extra innings this year, that\u2019s because they have. Not even two thirds of the way through the season, they have already played 29 extra innings, which is more than they played in all of 2024 (17) or 2023 (27). Crucially, they are holding serve in the outcome of those games, with a 7-8 record. Statistically speaking, teams ought to go about .500 in extra-inning games (with a measurable but not all that significant edge to a team with an elite bullpen or pinch runner). This is what did the team in back in 2023, when they went 6-14 in extras and missed the playoffs by one game.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Hegmuz\">Last night\u2019s game was of the particularly thrilling variety, with the M\u2019s scoring runs off both Bryan Abreu (for the third time this year) and Josh Hader (for just the second time ever). I see that Astros fans are apoplectic about the run-scoring not-hit-by-pitch in the 10th, but I\u2019m not sure they really have a leg to stand on after J.P. Crawford got a strike three call on a pitch a foot off the plate with the bases loaded in the second. Between that, the two batters per team that were actually hit by pitches last night, and the inherently high stakes of this series, I\u2019m expecting both teams to be bringing high emotion into today\u2019s series finale.<\/p>\n<p>Lineups<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\"   alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" data-upload-width=\"395\" width=\"395\" height=\"486\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Screenshot_2025_07_20_1.39.28_PM.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"ZdP8Ax\">With All-Star Bryan Woo facing All-Star Hunter Brown, today\u2019s game is, by a wide margin, the headliner pitching duel of the series. Hope you like fastballs. I\u2019m sure it comes as a relief to both Dan Wilson and Joe Espada that they\u2019ve got their most reliable arms out there today; each of them had to use seven relievers to cover more than 110 pitches last night.<\/p>\n<p>Game Info<\/p>\n<p id=\"NGlmZS\"><strong>First pitch: <\/strong>1:10 PT<br \/><strong>TV: <\/strong>ROOT Sports<br \/><strong>Radio: <\/strong>Old reliable<\/p>\n<p>Apropos of Nothing<\/p>\n<p id=\"N89ck4\">Shoutout to the grounds crew for the current grass design. It\u2019s my favorite of the year so far. If you haven\u2019t noticed, keep an eye out today.<\/p>\n<p>Today in Mariners History<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li id=\"bp01MT\">\n<strong>1978: <\/strong>Gabe Speier\u2019s uncle, Chris (a shortstop with a 19-year MLB career), hit for the cycle and led the Expos to a 7-3 win over Atlanta.<\/li>\n<li id=\"Ob0BGA\">\n<strong>2013: <\/strong>The Mariners beat the Astros by a score of 4-2 despite only managing to get one hit in the game. They scored two runs in the sixth on a pair of walks, a sac fly, and two passed balls, and another two in the seventh, with Michael Saunders\u2019 two-run double scoring Mike Zunino and Justin Smoak, who had both walked.<\/li>\n<li id=\"nL12I2\">\n<strong>2021: <\/strong>Cal Raleigh records his first two MLB hits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If it feels like the Mariners have played a lot of extra innings this year, that\u2019s because they&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":78814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[1542,204,1910,54377,4345,45419,45418,20415,4360,358,3187,5137],"class_list":{"0":"post-78813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-exclude-from-stn-video","9":"tag-front-page","10":"tag-game","11":"tag-game-recap","12":"tag-houston","13":"tag-landing","14":"tag-lookout","15":"tag-mariners","16":"tag-preview","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-v"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114887338475904779","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}