Mariners no hit for the 2nd time in 13 days

It's weird how baseball just flip flops between the balls being ridiculously juiced and now this. We're a quarter of the way through the season, no small sample size, and the Mariners are hitting .199 as a team. Obviously batting average isn't everything these days but it's a different story when your team has a under .200 average.

I'm fairly confident they could drag 47 year old Ichiro out of retirement and improve that stat.

It feels like it has the potential to implode mid 2010’s Nationals style. But with such a talent gap in the division it might take a Black Sox lite implosion.

The shift is a real issue when it comes to BA, putting balls in play, etc.

Some of it is pitchers maxing out their stuff and using foreign substances to be able to snap off crazy breaking stuff.

But the defensive positioning for everyone is brutalizing batting averages.

I really think it needs some limits. I always come back to limiting the number of times you can shift in a game.

Moving the mound back a foot would probably also be a good idea. Would equalize some of the advantages pitchers have developed.

Ichiro might be their best player if he suited up today.

They changed the ****ing baseball again, idiots. Over corrected and now jags like Turnbull and Miley are throwing no nos. The league average is in the 230s methinks. Baseball always finds a way to sit on its balls.

I LOLed at this after our recent talk about the Angels sucking.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Shohei Ohtani Regrets Not Researching Which Teams Were Good Before Signing With Angels <a href="https://t.co/gzrD1CpJbK">https://t.co/gzrD1CpJbK</a> <a href="https://t.co/yukL03KnY5">pic.twitter.com/yukL03KnY5</a></p>&mdash; The Onion (@TheOnion) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/1394793704079171585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Jonathan Bowlan looked really good in AA last night. 5.1 IP, 1 R, 7 K. He retired 14 out of 15 at one point.

I think there's a good chance we get rained out tonight. :(

Aldaberto Mondesi looks good in MiLB. He's played a few games and hasn't even died yet. So that is good.

Can anybody tell me about Daniel Lynch? I've watched part of all of his MLB starts and MLB players just tag him. They see the ball well off of him. You can see he has good velocity. He's left handed bla bla bla. Is there no deception? It just doesn't look like he's fooling anyone and if he puts it in the strike zone MLB players smoke it. Never seen as many hard hit balls in three starts in my life. The eye test just didn't do it for me. But I'm a reerun and I can't determine if a prospect is good by the sound of the ball hitting the mit like Clint Eastwood.

Tell us more

My dumbass eye made it seem like a lot of it was about control. He would get behind in counts early, then groove his pitches in the zone and get tattooed.

But I’m definitely no expert.

You haven't read any of the stuff about pitchers using bug spray and special thins like that (pine tar, etc) to increase spin rates and improve grips?

More spin+better grip = more movement, more dramatic breaks.

This may explain some of it, if it's indeed true.

https://www.royalsreview.com/2021/5/...ing-his-pitche