McLaren and his not-exhausted six-man bullpen
McLaren’s carped a little about only having 11 pitchers on his staff. The issue, though, isn’t that the bullpen can’t handle the load, it’s that McLaren’s using his bullpen badly — there’s just no other way to put this.
| 3/31 | 4/1 | 4/2 | 4/3 | 4/4 | 4/5 | 4/6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baek | off | 18 | |||||
| Corcoran | off | 30 | 4 | ||||
| Green | 37 | 20 | off | 33 | |||
| Lowe | 3 | 6 | off | 12 | |||
| O’Flaherty | 17 | 14 | off | 29 | 15 | ||
| Putz | 19 | 30 | |||||
| Rowland-Smith | off | 7 |
He has two relievers well-suited to long relief, and he’s burning Green every other game. He’s got two lefties, and he’s not using them even in situations where there are several lefties due up and they could be neutralized by a left-handed reliever. He doesn’t seem to realize that Rowland-Smith is on the staff at all.
And then, because he knew I was working on this post, he threw O’Flaherty in the 9th against some lefties. It didn’t work out, but good for thinking in that direction for once. If only he’d realize there’s another left-handed pitcher that can share the workload. Or… well, there’s a lot of things I wish they’d realize.
Game 6, Mariners at Orioles
Felix Day!
Nothing quite turns my spirits around after a game like last night’s than to know that Felix is going to be taking the mound, even if it’s ahead of schedule to pick up for Bedard.
Felix faces Guthrie, a pitcher whose notable characteristics include not being Felix. Which must suck.
M’s run out their standard Sunday day lineup. It’d be nice if they thought about, say, subbing out more than just the catcher, but this is the Mariners we’re talking about. I remember back in the day, when Lou would throw all his subs in on Sundays, and I’d complain that he’d be better off using them as appropriate rather than just punting one game a week. Ah, those were the days, when the bench got used at all.
The Orioles respond in kind, subbing Quiroz in at catcher, and Hernandez in at short.
In Happier News
Phillipe Aumont’s professional debut in Wisconsin: 4 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K. Not bad. He’s already talking about hoping they move him up later this year, but I wonder if anyone has told him that that High Desert’s park isn’t really a place you want to pitch.
He’s going to work out of the bullpen in a tandem start fashion for the first month of the year and move to the rotation in May. Regardless of what’s happening with the big club, there’s always hope down on the farm.
Jose, Jose
Mariner leaders:
AVG: Betancourt (.429)
OBP: Betancourt (.429)
SLG: Jose Lopez (.722)
H: Betancourt (6)
2B: Betancourt (2)
HRs: Jose Lopez, Jose Vidro (2)
XBH: Jose Lopez (3)
R: Betancourt, Jose Vidro (4)
RBI: Jose Lopez (5)
Total bases: Jose Lopez (13)
Walks: Beltre, Wilkerson (4)
Bedard out
Hip inflammation’s the early word. Felix moves up in the schedule. No prediction on whether Bedard will be available for the Tampa series.
Ow. Ow ow ow.
Sexson at-bats for April 5th
I don’t even need to show you pictures.
I will, quickly, note that what we’ve been saying is not that Sexson’s helpless, or never going to get hits — it’s that his bat speed is appreciably slower than it was when he was an effective hitter. Then his whole approach degrades quickly, because he has to cheat to make good contact, guess a lot, and let a lot of pitches go by. The result is, as Steve Nelson’s pointed out a couple times in comments, the classic old player crash: walks go up, average dives, and power declines though when they do make contact, by guess, cheat, or luck, the ball can still go a long way, because he’s still strong.
Game 5, Mariners at Orioles
Batista v Loewen. 4:05 our time.
This is the first time we see the quite pointless Wilkermorse platoon in action:
CF-L Ichiro
2B-R Lopez
LF-L Ibanez
1B-R “Big Fork” Sexson
3B-R Beltre
RF-R Morse
DH-B Professional Hitter Jose Vidro
C-R Johjima
SS-R Betancourt
I’ll skip repeating my rant about the Wilkerson platoon. This should, if nothing else, be a potentially wince-inducing introduction to how bad outfield corner defense can get. Sorry, Miguel.
versus
2B-B Roberts
3B-R Mora
RF-L Markakis
1B-R Millar
DH-L Huff
LF-L Scott
C-R Hernandez
CF-R Jones
SS-R Fahey
Meanwhile, Loewen’s a heavy ground-baller, so as you’d expect doesn’t give up the home run often, good K rate, bad walk rate. Now generally, I’d say that’s as about as well-suited a pitcher as you could put up against the Mariners, except they have been drawing walks lately, so they might be to take advantage of that if they keep that up. Still, turning Ibanez into a pumpkin in the middle of that order will help them a lot.
What might be even more interesting is to see Sexson against a lefty. Over his career, he hasn’t had much of a platoon split at all (.264/.339/.518 vs .260/.365/.504) but if part of the problem is recognizing pitches and getting his glacial bat around in time to make contact, facing a left-hander might be substantially easier than righties. Last year, for instance, his OBP was fifty points higher against lefties, though his slugging percentage was only up ~twenty points.
McLaren’s Bullpen Not Old Enough
From the Times today:
“The mind-set’s so much different because we don’t have guys in those roles,” manager John McLaren said after the defeat, in front of 14,429 fans at Camden Yards, evened his club’s record at 2-2. “Usually, in that situation you think about [Sean] Green, but he has to go back [further in the bullpen]. If you go to him too early, you’re going to need him [later]. And if you need him, you don’t have him.”
“I think when your big boy goes out, it’s got more of an impact,” McLaren said of Putz. “I don’t know if one guy can replace him, to be honest with you.
McLaren later hinted that his team’s experiment with an 11-man pitching staff might soon be over. Not as quickly as tonight’s game, but soon.
“It’s something we’re going to have to talk about,” he said. “We have talked about it.”
If there’s one undeniable fact about John McLaren’s managerial tendencies, it’s that he absolutely craves experience in every single situation. More than talent, ability, matchups, logic, or reason, McLaren is most comfortable when he can go to a player who has performed some specific task in the past.
Right now, his bullpen is one of the least experienced in the majors, and it’s freaking him out. Four days into the season, and he’s already talking about how he doesn’t have the options that he wants, and it’s a given that the team will be back to having 12 pitchers on the staff within a few days. Last night, he obviously didn’t want to go to Cha Seung Baek down by one, but he felt like he had to, in order to save Sean Green for the later innings.
Well, can I just point something out here? The Mariners have played four games in five days since the season started. Ryan-Rowland Smith has thrown seven pitches to three batters. Mark Lowe has thrown nine pitches to three batters. In four games, with an off day to boot, Lowe and Rowland-Smith have combined to throw 16 pitches, and we’re talking about the team not having options in the bullpen?
Perhaps it’s not a lack of options, but it’s the fact that McLaren doesn’t like the options he has? Faced with four lefties coming up in the bottom of the 9th against Texas on Wednesday, with a three run lead, Ryan Rowland-Smith wasn’t even considered for the job. Why? No experience pitching in the 9th inning. Clearly, he couldn’t be trusted to get out a bunch of LH hitters who suck eggs against left-handed pitchers – he’s just not old enough. Or something.
There’s no question the injury to Putz weakens the bullpen. Rather than react to the situation by adapting to the talent on the roster and utilizing it in the best way possible to help the bullpen succeed, McLaren is instead choosing to whine that he’s stuck with a bunch of inexperienced kids that he doesn’t trust. Note that, in his mind, the lack of trust is the kids’ fault, not his own.
With Green, O’Flaherty, Lowe, and Rowland-Smith, you have four solid relievers on this staff. If you can’t figure out how to use them efficiently enough to get through a single game against Baltimore after an off day, why on earth should we believe that you’re qualified to run a major league ballclub?
I’ll even make it easy for you. Rowland-Smith and Lowe can both get RH and LH hitters out – use them when the other team has a balanced mix of hitters coming up. Green and O’Flaherty are better against same handed hitters, so try to use them when you have a run of RH or LH hitters coming up if you can. You can’t get through the season by assuming that your entire bullpen is incapable of succeeding, so give them a chance. I know you wish you had your precious Rick White or Chris Reitsma around to blow the game, but you don’t, so try winning with the youngsters instead.
Sexson’s at-bats, quickly summarized
Since I spent so much time picking apart his awful game….
1st inning:
Curve up, called strike
“Cutter” way outside, ball
Fastball way inside, ball
Slop up, swings and misses, slop, slop in and down, swings and misses.
Strikes out.
All off-speed down the middle. Huh.
4th, v. Trachsel
Bunch of slop, mostly over the plate, and then Sexson doubles off a 86mph “fastball” way up and in.
6th, v. Trachsel
All off-speed, all off the plate except for the 85mph change inner-half and up, which he fouled off. Good that he didn’t go after that outside slop, as we’ve seen so far this year. Walks.
9th inning, v. Aquino
Three fastballs, the first way in, the second and third both up out of the strike zone, 93mph. Sexson homers on the second. Don’t throw a series of low-90s fastballs up over the plate.
It’s a weird day for Sexson. Being baffled by Trachsel – especially Trachsel’s crap over the plate – it’s strange to see him mashing stuff that’s up and in.
This day, on the whole, fits really well with the Jennings at-bats: Trachsel fed him off-speed junk around the zone, and Sexson couldn’t deal with it. However, put it up and in, and he’s swinging like mad, tonight with good results.
I’m going to say the same thing I said earlier this week: if that’s an effective approach, it’s one that nearly every pitcher in the majors can exploit. If the battles really come down to whether opposing pitchers can hit the outer corners with breaking stuff – and Sexson can’t discern balls from strikes or make effective contact when he swings at them – that’s brutal.
Here’s hoping that’s not the case or, at least, that they keep giving him meaty stuff to hit, telegraphing it repeatedly so he knows it’s coming, or they leave it up in his sweet spot.
Game 4, Mariners at Orioles
Washburn vs Loewen, 4:05 pm.
Good chance that this game won’t happen due to weather, but just in case, here’s a game thread for you all. In reality, we might not want this game to happen, as McLaren is planning on running out his Ibanez/Ichiro/Morse outfield of doom against the left-handed Adam Loewen, and is apparently not even noticing that noted flyballer Jarrod Washburn is taking the hill for his club. Morse/Ibanez is easily the worst defensive corner outfield tandem in baseball, and could provide some avert-your-eyes cringeworthy moments. Rain might be preferable to watching that, honestly.