We weren’t able to watch it, but those who could tune in on the radio were treated to some early action almost immediately in today’s spring training tilt in Maryvale. J.P. Crawford notched his first hit of spring, greeting Freddy Peralta with a ringing double to left field, before coming home on another double from Mitch Garver – the latter’s first of three hits on the day.
Nothing more came across in the first, but the bats jumped right back into things the next frame.
Seby Zavala got things started with a wind-aided bloop double to left (as an aside, both Rick Rizzs and Gary Hill Jr. noted that the wind was swirling in left field all game long; several adventurous routes and “doubles” occurred today)
That was all the Mariners would get off of Peralta, although they added a sixth run in the fourth off of Joel Payamps thanks to back-to-back doubles from Julio and Garver.
It was more than enough for Luis Castillo, however, who breezed through four innings of scoreless work today, allowing just two hits (one of which was a wind double) and walking none while striking out four.
Had it not been for a pesky eleven-pitch at-bat from William Contreras, La Piedra may have gone an extra inning on a 60-pitch limit, but regardless, a sharp performance was more than welcome to see.
Gabe Speier followed Castillo, and some bad BABIP luck led to a trio of runs for Milwaukee, but Andrés Muñoz, Ty Adcock, and Reid VanScoter combined to allow just two runs across the final four innings – VanScoter sealing the deal with two scoreless frames – paving the way to the Mariners’ fourth win of spring
