Mariners Notes: Crawford, Raley, Emerson

Before tonight’s matchup with the Yankees, the Mariners reinstated J.P. Crawford from the 10-day injured list. Seattle optioned Leo Rivas to Triple-A Tacoma to open a roster spot. Dylan Moore is starting at shortstop tonight, but Crawford will be available off the bench and could return to the lineup tomorrow.

Crawford appeared in 22 games before suffering an oblique strain in late April. He was off to a slow start, hitting .198/.296/.302 with two homers over 98 plate appearances. The left-handed hitting infielder had the best season of his career in 2023, when he popped a personal-high 19 homers with a .266/.380/.438 slash over 145 games. Crawford walked at a near-15% clip while striking out less than 20% of the time.

Moore has played shortstop in Crawford’s absence. The right-handed hitter has performed admirably, hitting .239/.316/.507 with 11 extra-base hits in 22 games. Moore has played well enough that he should stay in the lineup in a multi-positional role with Crawford’s return. In the short term, that could come at second base, where Jorge Polanco remains day to day as he battles hamstring soreness. Luis Urías has drawn in the lineup at third base in recent days, pushing Josh Rojas to the keystone.

Seattle could also mix and match more frequently at first base, although that’s not on account of injury. Luke Raley got the start there against Corbin Burnes in yesterday’s series finale in Baltimore. That pushed Ty France to the bench and allowed Dominic Canzone to draw into left field. It was Raley’s fourth start of the season at first base, in addition to his 24 starts in the outfield.

Adam Jude of the Seattle Times writes that manager Scott Servais could more frequently pencil Raley in at first base against right-handed starters. That’d allow the M’s to get the lefty bats of Raley and Canzone into the lineup while cutting into France’s playing time. France, a 2022 All-Star, slumped to a roughly league average .250/.337/.366 line last season. He’s off to an even slower start in 2024, hitting .235/.285/.359 through his first 165 plate appearances.

Raley (.297/.327/.444) and Canzone (.220/.289/.488) have made more of an offensive impact, particularly from a power perspective. The Mariners aren’t planning to utilize a strict first base platoon that’d keep France out of action against right-handed pitching entirely. To that end, he’s in tonight’s lineup against Yankees righty Marcus Stroman. Raley and Canzone are starting in the corner outfield, pushing Mitch Haniger to DH and Mitch Garver to the bench. With each of Garver, Haniger and France underperforming, Servais could trim into the playing time for any of that group to keep Raley and Canzone in the lineup.

Beyond the major league shuffling, the M’s provided an update on one of their top minor league infield talents. Colt Emerson, whom Seattle took with the 22nd pick in last year’s draft, will miss some time for Low-A Modesto. MLB.com’s Daniel Kramer tweets that Emerson recently suffered a fracture after fouling a ball off his foot and is expected to be out of action for 4-6 weeks. The 18-year-old is a consensus top 100 minor league talent. He was out to an excellent .271/.441/.414 start with more walks than strikeouts over 19 games before the injury.