First pitch is 4:05 PM ET on Saturday, June 13, the middle leg of this weekend set at Nationals Park. Neither team has named a Saturday starter publicly yet — Bryce Miller (2-0, 1.33) and Zack Littell (6-4, 4.76) are lined up for the opener Friday night, so Saturday's pitching card is the one to watch. The Mariners are 36-34 but it doesn't feel like it. They just lost 3 of 4 to the Orioles, including back-to-back stinkers by scores of 7-2 and 7-5, and the road trip has been a slog. Washington counters at 35-34 after splitting their last 5, capped by a wild 11-10 loss to the Giants where the bullpen turned a winnable game into a track meet. The injury list is doing real work on this matchup, especially for Seattle. Cal Raleigh is finally close — he hit 2 homers, including a grand slam, in his second rehab game at Triple-A Tacoma this week, but the Mariners are eyeing June 16 in Seattle as his return target, which means he's not walking through the door at Nationals Park. J.P. Crawford is still waiting on CT scan results on his hand, and Matt Brash just got sent back to Seattle to have his lat strain re-examined. That's a lot of regulars in street clothes. Washington has its own pitching mess — Jake Irvin shut down, Trevor Williams still ramping up in sim games, DJ Herz building back in the complex league — so first-year manager Blake Butera has openly said he'll mix and match, use openers, and stay flexible. That's the kind of thing that either works beautifully or gets exposed by an offense that can punish a third-time-through reliever. Seattle's lineup, even short Raleigh and Crawford, can punish it if Julio gets going. The story for the weekend is whether the Mariners can stop the bleeding before they fly home. They came into June looking like a wild-card contender and they're walking into D.C. having been outscored 19-9 over the last 3 games of the Baltimore trip. If they can't take 2 of 3 from a Nationals team that's still very much in development mode, the alarm bells start getting louder.