Game 81, Braves At Mariners
Hernandez vs Lowe.
Happy Felix Day!
First things first – a huge congratulations to friend of the blog Mike Curto, who gets the call-up from Tacoma and will be calling a few innings on the radio with Rick Rizzs. Curto does yeoman’s work for the Rainiers, and while he might not have the dulcet tones of Vin Scully, few announcers work harder or are more prepared to give their listeners interesting insights about the game itself. I’m thrilled personally for Mike, and look forward to listening to him this afternoon.
In other news, Josh Bard has been called up from Tacoma to replace the injured Chris Gimenez, who was placed on the 15-day DL. Edward Paredes was DFA’d to make room for Bard on the 40 man roster. It was always a mystery why Paredes was on the 40 man to begin with, and if he gets claimed on waivers, it will just mean that we don’t have to talk about him anymore. Win win!
Line-up today includes Cust again, so that’s a win, and he even gets to move up from 8th after showing he’s not dead last night. That said, the Ryan/Kennedy experiment as the #2/#3 hitters is killing the team right now, and so this line-up is still problematic.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Kennedy, 3B
Smoak, 1B
Ackley, 2B
Cust, DH
Gutierrez, CF
Peguero, LF
Bard, C