Conventional baseball wisdom would have you believe that making a pitcher work usually results in positive outcomes for the offense. Today the Mariners, defiers of convention, worked nine full counts, and they scored exactly one (1) run. That’s because all those full counts often ended up in outs or strikeouts—four strikeouts, to be exact, en route to an eye-wateringly-bad fourteen on the day. That’s just not a recipe for success no matter how many deep counts you work, and especially not with a bullpen like Minnesota’s.
The Mariners had no answers for Simeon Woods Richardson, who didn’t have the world’s sharpest command but managed to punch out eight Mariners nonetheless.