There is absolutely zero excuse to not have Diaz behind the plate today. Zero. None.

The cliff jumping is dumb I agree.

I admit I've been guilty of the "well at least we didn't lose ground" thought, and it was a good mentality to have during June/July. But now that we are less than 40 games away from the end, the team needs to switch the mentality on their end from just stay close, to let's take advantage of the rangers losing.

JDUB08AG said:

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There is absolutely zero excuse to not have Diaz behind the plate today. Zero. None.

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I understand that there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that we, as fans, don't see.

Fine. If Diaz was a liability behind the plate and only a good stick I could almost see the argument but each time he's behind the dish he's throwing guys out, hitting bombs, and the team IS F***ING WINNING!!!!

Maldy needs to put on his big boy pants and understand he's 37 and he's now the backup. Help Diaz prepare behind the scenes (from what I understand he's already doing that...great) and he can continue to catch Framber and hopefully work him out of his funk or here's an idea, let Framber throw to Diaz, who knows, he might actually do better.

It's almost as if Donkey has made it clear to the FO that Maldy is THE MAN and he's afraid to catch Diaz more because he doesn't want to be proven wrong. The lack of a challenge last night either consciously or subconsciously (or hell, unconsciously) prevented him from simply using it because he doesn't want Diaz's numbers to improve as he knows he'll catch more flack from Dana.

He wants to be able to pat Dana on the head and say "I'm the wise veteran manager, I know best, stop questioning me. Don't you know I won it all last year?" To which Dana should retort: "the TEAM won it all last year Dusty, you were mostly along for the ride. Now play Diaz at catcher."

agproducer said:

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I'm not sunshine pumping, but let's put this in perspective:

We are struggling right now, but if we win today, the Mariners will have made up just 1 game with the series.

We have not lost any ground against the Rangers.

There is still a lot of time to right the ship.

It's baseball. You get hot. You struggle. You sometimes just try to keep things afloat.

This is the typical August swoon.

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Perspective? The perspective is…
The Mariners won the season series, hold a tie breaker over us if necessary, and made up a game on us.

We haven't gained any ground on the Rangers, who have lost three straight.

There's a lot of time, but look at our remaining schedule…outside of Detroit, KC, and Oakland it's pretty stout. It's past time to right the ship…it has to happen now!

Outside of Altuve and Tucker, nobody in our lineup has been "hot" in quite some time. I'm channeling my inner-Dusty on this and not including Diaz even though he's been incredibly consistent.

EastCoastAgNc said:

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Since the All-Star Game, Framber Valdez is 2-3 with a 6.18 ERA and 1.31 WHIP in seven starts. He’s allowed 45 hits, 9 HRs, walked 12 and struck out 37 batters in 43 2/3 innings.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) August 20, 2023

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Good thing we have the soothing presence of Maldy behind the dish keeping him in line.

No lineup yet, but Kyle Tucker is at Minute Maid Park today. He just emerged with trainer Jeremiah Randall to do some exercises in right field.

— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) August 20, 2023

This is as much of a must win game as you can possibly have in the month of august.

I'm more worried about HB limiting hard contact than the lineup.

Called Julks last night. Tucker being out has been devastating.

Astros have never faced Hancock? That is probably not good

WTF dusty. Let him play. I hate our manager so ****ing much.

Per Scott Servais: Jose Caballero's shin is sore from the Framber Valdez fastball. He's also dealing with some minor hamstring tightness. But he's available to play if needed.

— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) August 20, 2023

"He's got an owie from the mean guy wearing orange"

Most important game of the season and he's going to intentionally sit Tucker. If he's been cleared to play he should play.

Guess it's more important to get Julks some PT.

At the end of the season Dusty will add to his legacy of getting fired by all the best clubs. They will say he's on a 1 year contract and he chose to walk. But we all will know.

JDUB08AG said:

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WTF dusty. Let him play. I hate our manager so ****ing much.

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I'm convinced Dusty reads this board and is intentionally ****ing with us.