Good thing the Mariners waited until they were on the road to drop that lineup card. At least that way, the groan had to travel all the way from Seattle to Kansas City before the first pitch.
The Mariners opened their three-game series against the Royals with Rob Refsnyder in the cleanup spot and Patrick Wisdom hitting fifth.
A left, Noah Cameron was on the mound for Kansas City. So, we can be adults about that part. Seattle wanted right-handed bats. Refsnyder and Wisdom are right-handed bats. Both have track records that make the idea make sense. But that is the only defense.
Now let’s move on to the part where everyone lost their minds. Because there has been a lot of discourse around Refsnyder lately, though “discourse” might be generous. Usually discourse suggests two sides. Majority of folks are asking why this is still happening?
Refsnyder entered the night hitting .106 with a .370 OPS. In the cleanup spot. Look, nobody needs to pretend Wisdom is a solid answer either. He has barely had time to make a real impression in Seattle. His season has been interrupted. He had to earn the call by doing cartoonish things to Triple-A pitching in Tacoma. He gave the Mariners a reason to take the power seriously before the oblique issue got in the way. So, there’s at least a path to understanding why the Mariners would want to see that against a lefty.
The Mariners weren’t completely inventing the idea out of thin air. If Josh Naylor is sitting, Brendan Donovan and Cal Raleigh are on the IL, and the opposing starter is left-handed, Seattle is going to start searching for platoon advantages. That’s normal baseball and it’s not the problem.
The problem is that the Mariners asked fans to look at the current version of this lineup and accept Refsnyder as the fourth hitter like everyone was going to pretend like it was the logical thing to do.
There are ways to buy time for a player whose role is supposed to matter over a long season. There are also ways to justify giving Refsnyder more chances against left-handed pitching, because that is the entire reason he is here. But batting him cleanup is an insult to the intelligence of a die-hard fan.
This isn’t really about one player, either. That is what makes it bigger than the usual nightly lineup complaint. The reaction was loud because the lineup seemed to reveal something uncomfortable about Seattle’s offense. The Mariners are trying to win games while still leaning on a few ideas that have not turned into proof yet.
And if you’re curious how it went, they collectively went 0-for-7 with five strikeouts. So…there’s that.
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