Game 20, Mariners at Rangers
Aaron Harang vs. Justin Grimm, 12:05pm
Ok, no one threw a perfect game, but you couldn’t realistically ask for a better outcome from yesterday’s game. The Rainiers had a 5-0 lead five batters into the game, following Mike Zunino’s three-run homer. Sure, he’d been in a horrendous slump, and his home splits are concerning. But the fact that he instantly starting hitting again in a new environment, and that Eric Thames and Alex Liddi continued their strong starts as well, is legitimately encouraging.
With the ball flying out of the park in Salt Lake, Andrew Carraway’s strong start is all the more impressive. He hadn’t been off to the best start in 2013, but six innings of two run ball, with six K’s to only two walks represents a real step forward for the Virginia product. Andrew Kittredge was so-so in relief, but he came in with an 11 run lead; nobody cares that his command wasn’t sparkling.
All in all, it was a great night, and word that Taijuan Walker’s pitched a solid six innings in AA made it even better. The team’s able to move players like Liddi and Romero around the diamond, and Zunino gets to work on his blocking with the benefit of a huge lead (if anything was concerning about last night’s game, it’s that the Rainiers threw three wild pitches). At this point, it’s only a matter of…. wait…what?
I’m being told that this is a Mariners blog, and that I should talk about the M’s getting blanked by Nick Tepesch, Derek Lowe and the rest of the Rangers’ B-team bullpen. I need to talk about another atrocious game from the M’s young bats, and how bad it’d look if they come up empty again against Justin Grimm. We’re supposed to talk about all of that while refraining from knee-jerk, emotional responses. We’re supposed to talk about Dustin Ackley’s BABIP or Jesus Montero’s single when the sheer magnitude of their struggles is right in front of us. Repeated daily, in baseball’s cruel way of focusing attention on the players at either end of the results and/or talent distribution. This is hard. I wonder if maybe that’s why I like AAA so much. Eric Thamtes *Eric Thames* isn’t a flawed, defensively-challenged corner OF – he’s basically Ryan Braun. Danny Hultzen has a command lapse, then fixes it, and we can tell each other that everything’s fine, and that player development is a matter of pointing something out, and “working on it” for a month or two and that’s the end of it. But this is an M’s blog, so Ackley and Smoak and the boys take on Justin Grimm in front of thousands of people screaming that they suck. Go M’s!
1: Chavez, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Morales, DH
4: Morse, RF
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Shoppach, C
7: Ackley, 2B
8: Bay, LF
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Harang
Divish reports that they’re giving Gutierrez a day off in the hope that he’ll be able to go back-to-back games sometime next week. Facing a right-hander with a four-seam and a good curve, maybe it’s not the end of the world.
Aaron Harang was pretty good in his first start with the M’s, but obviously Arlington presents a challenge for fly-ball pitchers without a ton of swing-and-miss stuff. Still, if he’s able to pitch effectively here, it’d go a long way towards shoring up the rotation – a rotation the M’s are evidently going to rely heavily on this year the way the offense is producing.
Game 19, Mariners at Rangers
Brandon Maurer vs. Nick Tepesch 5:05pm
These are the games the M’s absolutely need to have to avoid falling out of the race. As many have noted, there’s no shame in dropping games to Max Scherzer or Yu Darvish, but they need to beat the Nick Tepesch’s of the league to balance things out.
Maurer and Tepesch faced off against each other on the 14th, in what turned out to be Maurer’s first MLB win. Tepesch has, thus far, used a Maueresque pitch mix, with a four and two-seam fastball, the occasional curve, the odd change-up and a blizzard of hard sliders/cutters. He’s used it a bit differently, though. He’s got a lot of confidence in it (obviously), and so he’s used it *most* when he’s behind in the count. It’s not a putaway pitch, it’s his even-the-count pitch.
That wouldn’t be the worst thing for Maurer to emulate. His slider is more of a whiff pitch, but when batters expected it, they were able to hit it hard – even with two strikes. In his last start against the Rangers, he threw more fastballs than he had before, and nearly all were four-seamers. That worked in the still-spacious Safeco field, and while it’s tempting to say that he needs to get grounders in Arlington, I think Maurer should throw whatever pitch he can command – if that’s the four-seam, then he should throw it.
Franklin Gutierrez returns to the line-up today, as does Brendan Ryan who was held out yesterday to clear his head after his horrific slump at the plate. Montero’s also back after his own slump-related off-day.
Line-up:
1: Gutierrez, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Morales, DH
4: Morse, RF
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Ibanez, LF
7: Montero, C
8: Ackley, 2B
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Maurer
Raul Ibanez Might Still Take Pride In His Defense
This is not being published for the purposes of making any greater point. I don’t intend to make a statement about the front office, I don’t intend to make a statement about the coaching staff, and I don’t intend to make a statement about Raul Ibanez. Raul Ibanez is not being judged by me on the below, because the below are aberrations, and because the below aren’t why Raul Ibanez is on this team. This is being published because sometimes when Raul Ibanez plays defense it ends up being really god-damned hilarious, and who am I to deprive you of a smile? It’s been a hell of a week. Kick back, relax, and watch a professional baseball player look funny on TV.
Game 18, Mariners at Rangers
Joe Saunders vs. Yu Darvish, 5:05pm
Yesterday’s game, like the proverbial half-filled glass, confirmed the previously-held suspicions of pessimists and optimists alike. I woke yesterday morning pretty firmly in the former camp, but there’s something about beating Justin Verlander that leads you to re-evaluate and, at the least, keep your options open. The M’s are midway through one of the toughest stretches in the season’s schedule, and they’re still standing. I went on a twitter rant yesterday about how the team is so ill-prepared to face quality right-handed pitching, but they’re actually doing better against righties than lefties (though that’s not saying much at all). They’re winning despite their offense, but the flip side is that their pitching has kept them in a lot more games than I would have thought. The M’s were absolutely throttled by Detroit pitching, but they fought off what seemed like an inevitable sweep. To the optimists, the team has gotten great performances when they’ve needed them most, and they’ve shown they won’t wilt under pressure. To the pessimists, the rotation’s peripherals still aren’t great, and the less said about the line-up’s production, the better.
The M’s now head to Texas and what we still expect is a very different run environment*. It’s too early for batted ball rates to mean much, but the M’s have been about as fly-ball heavy as they were a year ago. I’m surprised by that, but again, it may just be a sample-size glitch.** Joe Saunders’ career numbers are every bit as bad in Texas as they were good in Seattle, and both splits contain less actual, relevant information than many suspect. That said, Saunders needs to keep the ball down and avoid mistakes to Beltre and Kinsler. The bullpen’s still presumably gassed a bit after the marathon game the other night and after Pryor’s injury. With Wilhelmsen pitching three innings in the past two days, it’s not likely he’ll be available. That means Hector Noesi may make his return to the majors in Arlington, and they may not be able to wait until garbage time. Yoervis Medina may pitch some extremely high-leverage innings as well. C’mon bats, let’s score 21 runs again.
Yu Darvish has pitched against the M’s five times, and he’s given up 21 runs and 17 walks in just 29 innings. The big problem has been the first inning – he’s given up 12 runs in the first frame against Seattle. The bad, of course, is that he’s been pretty stingy after that. Given his arsenal of pitches and a fairly normal arm slot, it probably comes as no surprise that his platoon splits are fairly normal. I’d worry more about the match-up if the M’s hadn’t just beaten the guy less than a week before they’d beaten Justin Verlander, but the M’s still look weaker against really tough righties (and Darvish is one of them, his ‘career ERA’ against Seattle notwithstanding). Robert Andino and a huge pinch hit helped the M’s squeak past Verlander, and the M’s took advantage of Darvish’s wildness back on the 12th. There’s still time for Dustin Ackley to show that the proximate cause of his early season struggles was that pre-swing timing mechanism; having a high-OBP hitter in the line-up against righties would be huge if the M’s are going to maximize the impact of adding Morse/Morales. That’s exactly what Ackley was drafted for.
Franklin Gutierrez is still out with his groin issue, but in this particular case, that’s probably OK. Not that Endy Chavez is a great hitter, but a not-at-full-strength Guti against a righty just seems like a bad idea. This team needs Michael Saunders healthy, and they need him soon. Speaking of OF groin problems, Julio Morban is practicing and doing some running with AA Jackson, but isn’t in the line-up quite yet. Chris Harris estimates he’ll see the field again this weekend.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Morales, 1B
4: Morse, RF
5: Smoak, DH
6: Ibanez, LF
7: Shoppach, C
8: Ackley, 2B
9: Andino, SS
SP: Joe Saunders
* Fun fact: The M’s gave up 28 runs to the Astros in four games, but held Texas and Detroit to 15 in a combined seven games.
** The big difference from last year is Hisashi Iwakuma, who had the best GB% on the staff in 2012, but has been a fly-baller so far in 2013.
Mariners Visit Rangers, Series Feels Like Precipice
| MARINERS (7-10) | ΔMs | RANGERS (9-6) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -7.8 (24th) | -4.1 | -3.3 (18th) | Rangers |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | 2.2 (11th) | -0.3 | 3.5 (10th) | Rangers |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 6.5 (5th) | 4.2 | 3.3 (8th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 0.8 (13th) | 1.4 | -0.6 (17th) | Mariners |
| OVERALL (RAA) | 1.8 (13th) | 2.3 | 2.9 (10th) | RANGERS |
Every game counts equally. Every regular season game, that is. But each game is merely 1/162th of eventual total. That’s not much, rationally. But our rational selves and our emotional selves do not communicate well. I can’t put a scientific label on it, but the difference between seeing the Mariners travel to Texas with a 7-10 record and seeing the Mariners travel to Texas with a 6-11 record seems enormous, even though it isn’t.
The Tigers came to town with a great hitting offense and entered a park that, in a stupidly small sample so far, hadn’t spelled doom like it had last year. In fact , you can’t even spell doom with Safeco Field because you don’t have an ‘m’. Anyways, the Tigers had a bunch of dangerous and hot — whatever that means (nothing) — hitters and the Mariners pitchers shut them down.
I don’t have much more to say in general. I’m going to back to trying to work and keeping tabs on Boston.
Wendy Thurm on the Mariners TV Deal
Over at FanGraphs, Wendy Thurm has been doing a great job keeping track of all the various television rights deals in MLB, and today, she has a column on the Mariners new venture. If you’re interested in the concepts that drive the decisions between a team owning their own RSN or licensing their broadcast rights to an existing network, you should check the piece out. Wendy has as good a handle on these issues as anyone.
Game 17, Tigers at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Justin Verlander, 12:40pm
(Note the early start-time today for getaway day)
First of all, thank you Felix. Thank you for that display of mastery, for rising to and far beyond the challenge the Tigers line-up provides. Thanks for breaking the will of Prince Fielder, and in so doing, making Franklin Gutierrez feel less bad about HIS night (or at least making him feel less alone). There’s only so much you can say about a mid-April loss to a good team, and thankfully you can read all you need from Jeff and Dave.* Thanks for appearing to care and for expending so much effort in a game with a result that seemed so inevitable. The M’s were never going to hit Scherzer, for reasons I talked about yesterday. That the M’s nearly won is remarkable and the game is very, very close to his perfecto or maybe some of his better games from 2007 in Felix’s sheer dominance. But ultimately, Felix (and M’s fans) needed help. Ultimately, Felix needed help from people remarkably ill-prepared to give it.
Dave’s article breaks down many of the managing issues, and they were legion, but the injury issues mitigate some of the blame. That Endy Chavez is here doesn’t explain away why he was used the way he was (I mean, what), but the fact that Saunders *wasn’t* available directly led to Franklin Gutierrez facing tough right-handed pitching in high-leverage situations. This is Franklin’s whiff rate by location against right-handed pitchers, compared to *other* right-handed batters. Guti’s career wOBA against righties is almost exactly the same as Brendan Ryan’s career wOBA. The M’s may have successfully purged one “part-time player” who couldn’t be trusted late in games due to his splits, but really needing hits from Gutierrez is roughly equivalent to requiring Endy Chavez to spark a two-out rally against Max Scherzer as a pinch-hitter.
Of course, the final, unavoidable case of a player attempting to do something he’s just not capable of was watching Smoak try to score from 1B on a sharp double to right. The decision to send him was the right one, given how long the game had gone on and how rare scoring opportunities were. But the M’s will win exactly when they do not need Endy Chavez to pinch hit while Jason Bay pinch runs. When Franklin Gutierrez faces a lefty with men on base, and when Justin Smoak is telling an actual runner to slide, not angrily barreling into a catcher who’s already got the ball safely tucked away. At this point, the line-up has known problems and other teams are unsurprisingly exploiting them.
So, today, the M’s face Justin Verlander. All of that stuff I said yesterday doesn’t necessarily apply. Verlander’s arm slot means his splits aren’t as extreme as Scherzer’s. And that’s all I’ve got as far as hopeful signs go.
1: Chavez, CF
2: Bay, RF
3: Morales, DH
4: Morse, LF
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Shoppach, C
7: Ackley, 2B
8: Andino, 3B
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Iwakuma
Hector Noesi was scheduled to make his 2013 debut with Tacoma today after impressing with AA Jackson. But that’s on hold now, as he’s been surprisingly recalled to Seattle, with Bobby LaFromboise heading down I-5. Last night’s long game means they need a long man, and hey, he was on the 40-man. Speaking of Jackson, Chance Ruffin continues his surprising run as a starting pitcher.
* The first gif in Dave’s article at Fangraphs may be in my top 5 all-time. *That’s* Felix. An unearthly pitch to a good hitter, and the reaction combines excitement with an air of inevitability. He’s excited, because he did exactly what he wanted to do, and it was about as difficult for him as dropping the resin bag, or putting on a hat.
Simplifying Jesus Montero
Here’s the starting point: between 2009 and 2010, Baseball America ranked Jesus Montero as the fourth-best prospect in the league. That was one slot behind Giancarlo Stanton, and a few slots above Buster Posey. The next year, BA ranked him as the third-best prospect in the league. That’s one slot behind Mike Trout. The year after that, BA ranked him as the sixth-best prospect in the league. That’s one slot ahead of Jurickson Profar. Scouting is scouting, and prospects are prospects, but nobody does the business better than Baseball America does, and for at least three years in a row, they absolutely loved Jesus Montero. They loved his skillset and they loved his future. It wasn’t a straight Yankees hype job — other sources, objective sources, saw Montero and saw his promise. Montero, if nothing else, was going to be a hell of a bat.
You know the background and you know the current state of things. Montero, right now, is only 23, and if he were on another team instead of the Mariners, some team we don’t care about, some team we don’t watch every day, we’d say “well of course he needs more time.” We wouldn’t write him off; we’d say it would be silly to write him off. And, indeed, Montero can’t be written off, not at this age and not after just 666 big-league plate appearances. But we should talk about what we’ve been able to observe. Montero’s in his second year with the organization, and I’ve personally never been more down on him. I’m preparing a simple checklist for the purpose of figuring out where Montero might be going:
Is Montero going to stay as a catcher?
- Almost certainly not, because he isn’t very good. It’s always been a question whether Montero could stick behind the plate, and while the Mariners seemed to make a commitment to him in 2013, they did so with an understanding that Mike Zunino shouldn’t be far off. If Zunino develops, he’s the guy. He’s the guy who can actually catch. Montero might be able to catch somewhere else, but he’s never going to be a good defensive catcher, and the reality is that his time at the position is probably just about up.
Is Montero athletic?
- lol no. Even after an offseason of learning how to run, Montero still can’t run, and he might be the least athletic player on the team. A good defensive position player doesn’t exist within his body. Maybe he’ll end up at first base, but he probably won’t be great at it. I’m not going out of my way to be critical of Montero because he’s probably a better athlete than I am, but I’m not a player in the major leagues and he just doesn’t measure up.
Is Montero ever going to walk?
- Jesus Montero isn’t programmed to draw walks. The walk he drew last night was his first of the season, and it should’ve been a called strikeout if we’re going to be honest. Now, as a rookie, Miguel Cabrera didn’t draw many walks. As a rookie, Miguel Cabrera was 20 years old, and when he was Montero’s current age he drew unintentional walks in 9% of his plate appearances. Over the equivalent of one full season, Montero has drawn unintentional walks in less than 5% of his plate appearances. And since when is it fair to compare a guy to one of the greatest hitters in the world? Cabrera’s eye for the baseball is just about unparalleled. Sometimes I don’t think Jesus Montero even sees the baseball when it’s pitched.
Is Montero ever going to hit for tremendous contact?
- Montero’s career contact rate is 79%. That’s a little below average. There’s obvious room for improvement, and Montero should improve, probably, but the league’s best contact hitters tend to have been contact hitters all along. If things really break Montero’s way, he’ll eventually settle somewhere in the mid-80s or so. So far this year, he’s been worse than he was last year. A big part of making contact is pitch recognition. That’s the most difficult thing to teach, and Montero hasn’t yet learned it.
Is Montero ever going to hit for big power?
- And there’s the thing that made Montero such a super prospect. Scouts loved his power, or his power potential. We’ve seen occasional flashes of incredible strength, so we know for a fact that there’s a major power hitter in there. Montero’s ISO ceiling is at the level of a league elite. But you know who has even more power? Carlos Peguero. Wladimir Balentien, obviously, had a lot of power, and so did Charlton Jimerson, if you remember him, which you don’t. Good power is only as valuable as the frequency with which it’s displayed, and has Montero even struck one ball with authority this month? Montero keeps mis-hitting baseballs, even when he hits them, so he’s done a lousy job of barreling up. He hasn’t been able to tap into his power reserve, because he hasn’t had the recognition and timing right.
If you want a reason to be optimistic, Montero’s rate of swings at pitches out of the zone is down from something like 38% to something like 29%. But we’re dealing with a sample of not even 75 pitches out of the zone, yet, so that doesn’t say much, and Montero also doesn’t pass the eye test of possessing an improved approach. Evaluating a player’s approach isn’t as easy as looking at his O-Swing% and his Z-Swing%, and for evidence, know that Dustin Ackley and Mike Trout have nearly identical plate-discipline stats. They don’t have nearly identical approaches. If Montero had a good approach, he would’ve hit a baseball hard by now. He would’ve hit a baseball at least off of a fence. He doesn’t recognize pitches, or he does and he doesn’t know what to do with them, and those are kind of important things for a hitter to be able to do if he wants to someday not suck a lot.
On one hand, Montero is young and he was recently one of the game’s top prospects. On the other hand, Montero is a probable designated hitter getting out-hit by whatever Brian Dozier is. It’s not like we can say “well, Montero’s going to lose his position, but at least he can mash.” What we can say is “well, Montero’s going to lose his position, but at least maybe he can mash, if he figures out how to recognize and react to different pitches.” Which is the hardest thing in baseball to do. At present, Montero is something like a below-replacement-level DH. His realistic upside is being all right, without an outstanding batting average and without an outstanding OBP. He won’t run enough to beat out groundballs or stretch singles into doubles, and he won’t walk enough for people to not be mildly surprised whenever he draws a walk.
We basically know Montero won’t be a catcher. We know he’ll subtract value with his base-running. We can be pretty certain he’s never going to have a great approach; he might just someday have an acceptable approach. Maybe then he’ll hit for legitimate, consistent power. As an aggressive-swinging DH. Montero is a young, supposedly core organizational asset. But just what sort of asset is he, really?
I can’t tell you how badly I want for Montero to start hitting. The ship hasn’t sailed. But the engine’s turned on, and even if we manage to board, it doesn’t actually seem like that nice of a boat.
The Statement Game
Ordinarily, in sporting circles, when people talk about statement games, they talk about big games, important games, games where you can send a message to the competition. They’re coming-out games, games of intimidation, games of deep, meaningful triumph. The Mariners, against the Tigers, just played a game that made a statement. But it was a different sort of statement game — a game that made a statement about the very state of the Mariners.
Somebody asked me not too long ago whether I’d ever write a book about what the Mariners have been through over the last decade or so. My answer was something to the effect of “no”, because the book would be almost immediately irrelevant and certainly immediately uninteresting. But let’s say that there were such a book. Let’s say that the book somehow became so popular it led to the development and filming of a major motion picture. Something really Hollywoody, something as nuanced and subtle as a sheet of hot pink construction paper. The movie, without question, would have to feature a baseball game. The baseball game would have to weave together as many story elements as possible. The baseball game would be played toward the end of the movie, at the climax, and that baseball game could look an awful lot like tonight’s baseball game did.
Here’s the message with which the movie slaps you in the face and then slaps you again, on the other side, just to drive home the point: the Mariners, for a while, have had Felix Hernandez. Felix Hernandez can’t do it all himself, no matter how much he tries, bless his heart. Success always seems just right around the corner, and you’re always able to talk yourself into believing the team is on the way, but over and over and over again, heartbreak. Maybe not heartbreak, because people have become desensitized. Dejection. Renewed disappointment.
Felix is the bright side. He’s the superstar, he’s the guy without whom there might not be any emotion at all. There are people who want the Mariners to win for Felix more than they want the Mariners to win for themselves. Felix sometimes feels like the only certain link between the Mariners and Major League Baseball, and Felix can be impossible when he sets his mind to it. Felix was impossible tonight, which is how he struck out 12 Tigers in eight innings. It’s how he allowed just four hits over that span, with a single unearned run. The Tigers are probably the best team in the American League, and Felix didn’t just flatten them — he made tortillas out of them, and he made filling out of some of the leftover bits, and he served a heaping helping of Tiger tacos. For eight innings, Felix played video-game baseball.
And he left with a no-decision. The team was dealt a loss. There was zero support anywhere in the lineup. The game could’ve been managed better, strategically. Because of Felix, things were always close, and the Mariners were never that far away from a victory. It would take but one simple swing of the bat, and the most loyal of followers stuck around to see if their faith would be rewarded. Because of the Mariners, that swing of the bat was never swung. Other swings of the bat were swung, instead, and the team wasted Felix’s brilliance by plating one run over 42 outs.
Felix gives the Mariners such a high baseline. He always has, at least ever since he blossomed into the ace he is today. The rest of the Mariners just can’t combine to get the team over the top. Some of them disappoint because they screw up. Some of them disappoint because they just aren’t good enough. Almost inevitably, they disappoint, if not to a man, then as a collective. Felix keeps going, perhaps perversely fueled by the challenge, but the outcome’s the same. The outcome’s pre-determined. The Mariners are going to have Felix, and the Mariners are going to fail.
Given Felix’s outing, this was a game the Mariners should’ve won. Of course, from the other side, you could say that given Max Scherzer’s outing, the Tigers should’ve won. And they did, and that’s valid. But fans get to be self-centered, and in fact they almost always are, and this game said so much about the organization in 267 occasionally spellbinding minutes. Here’s Felix. Here’s what the Mariners have. Here are the rest of the Mariners. Here is the intervention by the people in charge of the Mariners. Here’s the familiar outcome we approach every time as if it’s less familiar than it is. There are glimpses of hope, there are sparks, but nothing fully ignites. On the off chance something catches, it rains.
The story of the Mariners is that they’ve had a neat guy and they’ve sucked. Let it not be forgotten that on Felix’s most magical of days, last August, he was given one run of support. He was given the bare minimum, meaning the Mariners came close to wasting perfection. They didn’t, and maybe now that’s the lesson: you can win, Felix, so long as you’re perfect. And Felix takes up the challenge every time, never stopping to look around and see if anyone else has to meet the same impossible standard. A healthy pitcher looks at a game like tonight’s and concludes that there just wasn’t enough support. An unhealthy pitcher looks at a game like tonight’s and wishes he hadn’t given up a run. There’s no way, at this point, that Felix is healthy. Not between the ears, not after what the Mariners have put him through.
I think a good, appropriate team slogan would be Seattle Mariners: Almost. I just can’t tell if it conveys too positive an impression.
Game 16, Tigers at Mariners
King Felix vs. Max Scherzer, 7:10pm
Happy Felix Day.
I’m not sure why, but I’ve been thinking about Dustin Ackley a lot today. Part of it may be that he came up in Dave’s fangraphs chat, and then Jeff went a wrote a post about him below. We’re *all* thinking about Dustin Ackley and wondering when things will change, and, increasingly, IF they’ll change. The M’s are set up to be OK against left-handed pitching, with Mike Morse in the middle, Franklin Gutierrez at the top and even Kelly Shoppach and his career .375 wOBA (better than Morse’s career figure) keeping the pressure on pitchers and away from Jesus Montero who could sit back and mash. Against right-handers, the M’s had Morse again (who’s got essentially no splits), Kendrys Morales (who has huge splits), and the kids: Seager, Saunders and Ackley. The M’s team wOBA is below .300 against both lefties and righties, so it’s not that one side or the other is driving the M’s struggles scoring runs. But I would love to have more faith in the offense tonight than I do, and Ackley’s a big part of that.
Max Scherzer is a fastball/slider/change-up pitcher who throws from a low three-quarters arm angle. With plus velocity, a sharp slider and that low angle, he’s crushed right-handers historically. In his career, he’s held righties to a sub-.300 wOBA, and he’s been even better in recent years. In his breakout 2012 campaign, Scherzer struck out 35% of righties, holding them to a .244 OBP. He’ll throw the occasional mistake, so his HR rate is essentially identical, but he strikes out so many and walks so few right-handers, that the M’s absolutely need their lefties to produce. This is where Ackley should shine – just like in the minors, righties find it nearly impossible to strike him out, but his walk rate against them has tumbled as he’s steadfastly refused to punish them for staying in the zone. Kyle Seager’s done what he can, as all of his doubles have come against righties. Hell, even Shoppach’s done well against them in one of those April-split-oddities. This has been a problem, but it hasn’t become a huge one. If Dustin Ackley can’t drive fastballs from righties, we’ll have one.
King Felix attempts to stop his personal losing streak against what’s probably the best line-up in the AL, but the bullpen should be ready after they used Bobby LaFromboise and Yoervis Medina in high-leverage situations last night. Hopefully Carter Capps, Oliver Perez and, if things go well, Tom Wilhelmsen, will be ready. The M’s went and built themselves a specialist bullpen, with three (3) lefty specialists, but they haven’t really been able to deploy it. They had their sidearm-lefty (well, one of them anyway) pitch to Prince Fielder in a tight spot one inning, then left him in to face Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta, Matt Tuiasosopo and Austin Jackson the next inning. Before his demotion, Lucas Luetge’d faced 16 righties and only 5 lefties.
The line-up:
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
SP: King Felix!
This has been entirely too pessimistic. Today’s game is a brilliant pitching match-up, and it’s Felix day. Baseball often seem designed to stamp out hope, to tantalize and then hide talent, to snip the ligaments you’d been tracking and wishing on for years. As the near-decade of futility casts shadows over every move, every discussion about this team, I find I *need* Felix more. I need to stop wondering about whose seats are hot and why Ackley can’t stop 4-3ing his way out of a job. I need to stop seeing frustration and confusion and something like resignation on the faces of so many faces, from Montero to Wedge. It’s kind of dumb, in that special way sports can be the exactly-right-kind-of-dumb, that an awesome change-up can temporarily push that away, but I’ll take it. I’ll take my optimism where I can find it, and if only Felix is convinced he’s playing for a championship-caliber team, I’ll at least enjoy watching his championship-caliber pitching. Enjoyment is good.
Seems timely to point out Austin Jackson’s strong start and his unbelievable improvement in K rate. See! It’s technically possible to improve, M’s youngsters! If you were worried it was illegal, morally questionable or at least discouraged, it is none of those things.
James Paxton starts in Tacoma against Fresno – game’s at 7pm.
The Jackson Generals lost a tough one today as noted marc w fave’s poor start continued: he blew the save as Mississippi won 3-2. Cuban lefty Roenis Elias was solid for the Generals.