Mariners @ Dodgers April 13, 2015: Entirely Too Excited For Scott Van Slyke

Interleague play in April is never not weird. It was weird in 2013 in Baltimore, and it’s weird with Seattle in Los Angeles tonight.

	Mariners			Dodgers
	7:10 p.m.			Los Angeles, Ca.
CF	Ackley		SS	Barney
LF	Smith		RF	Puig
2B	Cano		1B	Gonzalez
RF	Cruz		2B	Kendrick
3B	Seager		LF	Van Slyke
1B	Morrison		3B	Guerrero
C	Zunino		CF	Pederson
SS	Miller		C	Ellis
P	Paxton (L)		P	McCarthy (R)

I guess it gets a little less weird each year, now that we have interleague play every day, and I’m glad the Dodgers haven’t yet had to open their season against an AL team, but it still feels just a little off.

On the other hand, they’re going to sneak through this series without seeing Felix Hernandez, so that’s something. I don’t usually lightning-round game threads, but there’s just all sorts of news to get to today.

• David Huff will be recalled to make the start tomorrow, though “the start” is really just a euphemism for “the first of what will be many relievers.” No word yet on the corresponding roster move — my guess would be Darwin Barney gets optioned out, and maybe that’s why he’s giving Jimmy Rollins a rest tonight, in addition to lefty James Paxton being on the mound, though having him lead off is absurd — but there won’t need to be a 40-man roster move, because that currently sits at 39, thanks to…
• …Ryan Webb getting released today. We’d earlier heard that he’d decided to accept his assignment to Triple-A, so this comes as a bit of a surprise. Ultimately, this means that the Dodgers ended up paying $2.75 million for the 74th overall draft pick, and that’s really the new Moneyball: Finding new places to spend your money as baseball continues to restrict teams from doing so in the draft and internationally. The $2.75m is basically meaningless to the team; the pick is at least a shot in the dark. (Webb already signed with Cleveland.)
• Back to Huff, he might get the chance to stick around for a while. The Dodgers won’t need another starter until April 25, so he can hang out in the bullpen until then, and he might actually need to start again, because Hyun-jin Ryu hasn’t even played catch from 90 feet yet and seems all but certain to be out until May.
• You think the Dodger bullpen has had ugly moments? Last night, the Mariners took a 7-3 lead into the 9th against Oakland before Fernando Rodney put forth an outing that had Chris Hatcher saying “damn, that was awful,” probably. Manager Lloyd McClendon noted earlier today that Rodney, Danny Farquhar, and Yoervis Medina are all likely unavailable tonight, and Tom Wilhelmsen is on the DL with an elbow injury suffered in just the dumbest way. That leaves the Seattle bullpen tonight as lefties Charlie Furbush & Tyler Olson and righties Dominic Leone & Carson Smith.
• Dustin Ackley, starting in center for the M’s, hasn’t played the position since Sept. 2013. Mariners fans are stoked.
• Scott Van Slyke!

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