Mariners Game Preview: Nate Karns to Make M’s Debut Saturday Night

M’s look to even the series as they send Nate Karns to the mound.

The Seattle Mariners (2-2) will face the Oakland A’s (2-3) in game 2 of the 3-game series. Nate Karns (0-0, 0.00) will take on Rich Hill (0-0, 6.75) of the A’s tonight, as first pitch is scheduled for 6:10 pm PT at Safeco Field.

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Karns will make his first start of the season after a decent spring where he went 2-1 with an ERA of 5.46. He pitched 28 innings and struck out 25 while walking 9. Last season Karns had his first full season with Tampa Bay, making 26 starts and going 7-5 with an ERA of 3.67 over 147 innings of work. This year he will look to take another step forward with the Mariners and improve on his last years numbers.

Hill is in his first year with the A’s and has been pitching since 2005. Going into his age 36 season, the southpaw has a career record of 26-24 with an ERA of 4.55 over 75 starts. In his first start of the year, Hill went 2.2 innings, allowing 4 runs on 3 hits. He also walked 1 and plunked 2 batters.

Here are tonight’s lineups as announced by M’s skipper Scott Servais and A’s manager Bob Melvin:

Going up against another lefty, the lineup is identical to last night’s order. Dae-Ho Lee is in the lineup for the second night in a row after crushing his first major league homerun, and first hit, last night. Also in the lineup is Franklin Gutierrez who after a hot spring, is 0-6 to start the season. He and Nelson Cruz will swap positions from last night, meaning Cruz will DH and Gutierrez will play right field tonight.

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Kyle Seager will drop down and hit 5th in this lineup against lefties, and Ketel Marte will hit in the 2-hole. Seager went 0-4 last night with a strikeout and Marte was 1-2 with a walk.

Robinson Cano failed to hit a homerun last night, but still went 1-4 and has logged a hit in each of the first 4 games this season. Chris Iannetta is 3-8 and hitting .375 while Leonys Martin is 4-12 and hitting .333 to start the season. Both went hitless last night, but look to continue their hot hitting as the Mariners try to even up the series at a game a piece tonight.

Tonight’s game will be televised on Root Sports Northwest and can also be streamed live for MLB.tv subscribers. Fans in the Pacific Northwest can also listen to the live broadcast on 710 ESPN.

Next: Chris Coghlan Spoils Mariners Home Opener

Make sure to go follow SoDo Mojo on twitter for live updates of tonight’s game. And check back here after the final out is recorded for a full recap of the action. Go Mariners!