Tom Wilhelmsen, Maybe a Starter
Tom Wilhelmsen was optioned to Tacoma after last night’s game. Today, Tom Wilhelmsen is starting for the Tacoma Rainiers. These two things are related.
Wilhelmsen has obviously struggled this year, primarily with his command, but there are enough bullpen innings to go around that he could work on things in Seattle if they wanted him to. They’ve already done that earlier in the season, in fact. However, by optioning him to Tacoma, they’ve opened up a new path, and that potential opportunity begins today.
Per Greg Johns on Twitter:
#Mariners will let Wilhelmsen throw a few innings today. Not saying they're making him a starter yet, but want to see him in that situation.
— Greg Johns (@GregJohnsMLB) August 6, 2013
They’re not committing to Wilhelmsen as a starting pitcher. He’s only going to throw two innings today, and then they’ll re-evaluate from there. If he does well, he’ll probably get another start, and maybe go three innings in that one. If he bombs out, maybe this ends up being nothing.
But there are reasons to think that maybe this might work. Tom Wilhelmsen’s secondary stuff consists of a curveball and a change-up, both pitches that historically do pretty well against opposite handed hitters. He’s shown a bit of a platoon split in relief, but nothing too extreme. He’s not Carter Capps. His stuff works against left-handed batters, at least when he’s throwing strikes.
As a starter, working multiple innings, Wilhelmsen will almost certainly lose velocity. He won’t be able to throw in the high-90s for extended periods, so his fastball will probably settle in more around 93-96. There is some evidence that it is easier to throw 93 in the zone than 98 in the zone. It is possible that a reduction in velocity could actually help Wilhelmsen throw more strikes, which is his primary problem at the moment. While the strikeouts will go down, the walks very well may go down too, and it’s entirely possible that Wilhelmsen will be more effective as a mid-90s starter than a high-90s reliever.
It’s an experiment worth trying, I think. The raw stuff is there for Wilhelmsen to be a solid starting pitcher. His health was a concern after they signed him following his long layoff, but he hasn’t really battled any issues the last few years, and stretching him out now will give them a chance to see if he can maintain his velocity while throwing more pitches. If he can, and if the reduction in velocity helps him throw more strikes, then he could potentially be a rotation option for 2014.
Of course, he could bomb out as a starter too, and this might not end up going anywhere. If it doesn’t work, the Mariners can try him in relief again. No harm, no foul. It’s worth a try, though, and I’m glad to see the organization looking to see if perhaps this move might help him get back on track.
Game 112, Blue Jays at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. R.A. Dickey, 7:10pm
Undervalued top-flight starter against formerly undervalued top-flight starter in Game 1 of a three-game set versus Toronto. The M’s come into the game with a better record than the Jays and Angels, two teams that were expected to compete for the ALCS this year. Dickey’s return to earth following his Cy Young-winning 2012 has less to do with the Jays misfortune than other things (Josh Johnson pitching like crap, Jose Reyes’ injury, Melky Cabrera turning back into a pumpkin, etc.) but it’s a concern given the Jays owe him $24m for 2014-15.
Early in the year, Dickey’s velocity was down a bit from where it’d been in 2012 (easily his best year as a big leaguer). There were signs in June that he’d recovered that missing mile-per-hour, but he gave it away again in July. Dickey certainly seemed to be a better pitcher with the extra oomph on his knuckleball, but it’s still not clear exactly why. Keeping the ball in the strikezone was one possibility, but he threw fewer strikes in 2012 than he had in any other year. His o-swing and contact rates were unbelievable in 2012, but he hasn’t been able to recapture that form, and thus his 2013 looks a lot like his 2009-2011 average. As Dave’s mentioned, that’s not bad – the Jays aren’t paying for a Cy Young winner, they’re paying for a middle-of-the-rotation guy, and Dickey *can* return some value to them. But he’s going to have to figure out why he’s losing so many grounders. Since learning the knuckler, he’s been a slight GB pitcher, peaking in 2010 with a 55% GB rate. That slipped in his next two seasons with the Mets, but it’s fallen through the floor this year, as his GB% is down to 41%. The knuckleball’s getting a few less grounders, but his fastball’s been a serious problem this year too. It used to look great on a rate basis, as it could surprise hitters whose timing was geared to a 76mph floater. For whatever reason, no one’s fooled this year, and Toronto’s a terrible place for fly-ball pitchers.
Many speculated about how Rogers Center would affect Dickey, with several believing the controlled environment would be conducive to a knuckler. Unfortunately, he’s been awful at home, with home/road splits like a Colorado Rockies hurler in 2000. Of course, the M’s aren’t playing in Toronto tonight, but a fly-ball heavy righty (Dickey’s had standard platoon splits for a few years) seems like a decent match-up.
I realize I spend an inordinate amount of time in these posts talking about opponents, so let’s shift focus to the M’s. Without looking, what pitches are swung most often? That is, what pitches generate the highest swinging percentage from opposing batters? It’s not fastballs, and it’s clearly not curves (which have high rates of “taken” strikes after freezing hitters). The slider is pretty close to the top, as those of us who’ve seen Adrian Beltre can attest. But the answer seems to be change-ups/splits. In fact, only two active pitches have induced swings more than Iwakuma’s splitter: Alex Cobb’s splitter and Tommy Milone’s change-up. This is somewhat remarkable, given that Iwakuma generally doesn’t leave his splitter in the strikezone – that is, only ~1/3 of Iwakuma’s splits are called balls despite the fact that less than 1/3 are thrown in the strike zone. Iwakuma keeps the ball down extraordinarily well, whcih allows him to generate huge GB% on it, all while racking up swinging strikes too. It hasn’t been untouchable this year, as the A’s recently hit three HRs off of it, but it’s still one of baseball’s better pitches.
So why doesn’t he throw it more often? Unlike, say, Steve Delabar’s, it’s effective against righties and lefties, and he’s given up HRs by the dozen on his fastballs. Iwakuma pitches up in the zone with fastballs much more than you’d expect from a guy 1) with a dinger problem and 2) with great command of his other pitches. It can’t be that Iwakuma’s trying his best to keep the ball low and missing repeatedly. Instead, I think he *needs* the fastball up to effectively disguise the splitter. If he threw four-seamers at the knees, the different shape of the split would be visible to batters much earlier, and his swing rate on them would presumably drop. If the fastball’s thrown in the zone and even above the belt, it’s going to look indistinguishable from the split at the time the batter decides to/begins his swing. So yes, Iwakuma’s fastball(s) don’t have great results, but they’re not really supposed to. They’re the sacrificial anode that protects his real weapon.
1: Miller, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Morales, DH
4: Morse, RF
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Saunders, CF
7: Smoak, 1B
8: Ackley, 2B (!)
9: Quintero, C
SP: Iwakuma
Blake Beavan starts in Tacoma tonight as the Rainiers host Iowa. Hey, Hector Noesi turned in a brilliant outing the other day, so why can’t Beavan? Anthony Vasquez takes the hill for Jackson.
You’ve probably read more than you’d like to about the Biogenesis suspensions, but here’s a great piece from BP’s Colin Wyers about why MLB went after the Biogenesis 12 with such fervor and the need to take a step back from the edge here (“Constant hysteria is unsustainable”). We are constantly shocked – SHOCKED – to find that chemists have come up with a new, currently-untestable PED, despite the Tour de France sagas, despite Balco and despite Biogenesis. This isn’t going away.
Mariners have Awkward Reunion with Expansion Siblings
| MARINERS (52-59) | ΔMs | BLUE JAYS (51-60) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | 24.0 (9th) | 9.1 | -8.4 (17th) | Mariners |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | -25.0 (27th) | 3.3 | -6.6 (19th) | Blue Jays |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 13.6 (10th) | -1.6 | -13.4 (23rd) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | -3.4 (21st) | 0.7 | 9.2 (10th) | Blue Jays |
| OVERALL (RAA) | 9.1 (11th) | 11.4 | -19.2 (17th) | MARINERS |
That’s a way to rebound, taking two of three from the Orioles and showing off some hitting skills while doing it. As area that I’m finding encouraging is that while Miller and Franklin are both struggling a bit lately, they both are maintaining some positive traits. For Miller, it’s the plate disciple as he has five walks to just seven strikeouts (and remarkably, only one swinging). With Franklin, it’s the power as his ISO over the past two weeks is over the .200 mark.
They’re (hopefully) both in slumps, but unlike some of the players we’ve seen (*cough* Ackley *cough*), neither appears to turn into a completely useless player while in the slump.
Michael Saunders, Kyle Seager and Kendrys Morales on the other hand are just all kinds of hot right now, in the hitting streak department. And Justin Smoak’s .293/.396/.415 line from the past fortnight is basically what I hope he’s able to maintain over the long haul: decent average, good walks, mediocre power. Sure, good power would be better (duh), but I aim for achievable, I hope.
Just in case you forgot, the Blue Jays have Steve Delabar and he’s pretty awesome. The Mariners traded Delabar for Eric Thames, whom they never really used and eventually traded for Ty Kelly, who’s actually doing quite well (.905 OPS) down in Tacoma. So I guess you never know. You never know.
It’s R.A. Dickey for the Blue Jays tonight against Iwakuma. It’s always a little fun to watch Dickey pitch as I bear neither him nor the team any ill will over their separation. Dickey was bad as a Mariner, it made sense to let him go. Then he figured something out and got incredible, then he was average again, then he was incredible, and then this year he’s been average again. Guess what! You never know. But you can click through to the pitching charts in case you’ve been curious what color I assigned to knuckleballs in the scouting graphs.
I actually managed to come up with positive stuff here, which surprises me a little. True, it’s always easier to be upbeat after a winning series. But the Mighty Seahawks are about to start fake-real games and the Sounders just did what the Mariners basically never have — spend out their nose to bring in a missing piece in the midst of good season. And the Mariners just keep on being the Mariners.
I guess I’ve just re-calibrated my expectations bar at this point to where I’m only looking for them to be passively interesting. Congrats, Mariners, you are managing to clear that bar. Care to try for the next rung?
A New Perspective On Old History
I don’t know how that all might’ve happ-
A-Rod plays mentor to Montero
A-Rod took his two days in Scranton with the Triple-A Yankees as an opportunity to mentor [Jesus Montero]. He took him into the indoor batting cage Wednesday afternoon and worked with him on his swing, his approach and about making the next step for about 20 minutes.
[…]
“He has been great with all the guys, but really taken Monty under his wing,” Wynegar said. “He is trying to show him the work it takes at the major league level. And Monty is just absorbing it all.”
[…]
Rodriguez’s tenure as a tutor was over after he was pulled from the game in the eighth inning Wednesday night and headed for Minnesota, but he told Montero he’d like to reconnect.“We talked about hopefully getting together this winter in Miami, working out with Kevin Long and Butch and whoever wants to come down to Miami and have a little bit of a winter hitting camp,” Rodriguez said.
Jesus Montero Suspended 50 Games
As expected, Jesus Montero accepted a 50 game suspension as part of the fallout from the BioGenesis investigation, which means his 2013 season is effectively over. Players can serve major league suspensions in the minor leagues, as Montero will do, but they cannot participate in games or be in the dugout while games are occurring. Essentially, Montero will be limited to practice, and it’s not clear where he will spend the final two months of the season working out, though Arizona would be a logical guess.
Taking the suspension now means that Montero will start the 2014 season with a clean slate, as his suspension will be entirely contained within the rest of this year. Of course, it also means that he’s going to finish the year without actually having shown the organization any real improvement at anything, so there’s basically no chance he’s going to be ticketed for the big league roster next year out of spring training.
Montero is no longer a catcher, his offensive potential is in question, and he’ll likely enter the 2014 season in Tacoma, trying to prove to everyone that he can actually hit well enough to justify a big league roster spot at some point. I’ve always been something of a Montero skeptic, so I don’t see his offensive rebound as a sure thing, and am honestly not sure whether Montero will actually ever play another game in Seattle. He was nowhere close to being a big leaguer before this suspension, and losing a couple of months of in-game development time isn’t going to help. And, of course, there’s the issue of whether or not his minor league track record was built with chemical assistance.
At this point, Jesus Montero is probably a 2015 prospect. If he goes to Triple-A next year and has a monster season, shows he can handle first base at a reasonable level or hits well enough to justify DH at-bats, he could factor into the team’s plans again at some point down the line. But his stock has probably fallen faster than anyone else in baseballs over the last few years. For the short term, you can basically forget about Jesus Montero.
Game 110, Mariners at Orioles
Joe Saunders vs. Wei-Yin Chen, 10:35am
I once commented on some first-glance similarities between Wei-Yin Chen and Blake Beavan – both pitched off of a located 90-91mph fastball with lots of vertical movement, both had breaking balls that didn’t generate a ton of whiffs and both were extreme fly-ballers. Given the audience of mostly M’s fans, I have the feeling that many may have come away from that thinking that Chen wasn’t all that good. In fact, I think he was one of the best free agent buys of 2012, and he’s been excellent (when healthy) in 2013. Chen isn’t overpowering, and he gives up plenty of fly balls, but his fastball is sneaky-effective.
Chen’s biggest strength is holding lefties at bay. Using his four-seam and slider, the Taiwanese southpaw has a wOBA against lefties under .300 (300 lefties faced), and a FIP under 4. As an extreme fly-ball guy, he’ll give up his share of home runs, but he generates lots of infield pop-ups, a good number of strikeouts and limited walks. Against righties, he uses a change-up, which has also been quite effective. Still, he throws his fastball around 60-70% of the time, and that’s been the key to his success. While righties have had a bit more success against Chen’s fastball (as you’d expect), they hit plenty of pop-ups and swing and miss on it more than you’d expect. Chen’s not a strikeout guy; his K% is down from last year, and it was under 20% to begin with, but this isn’t a bad profile. Sure, you’d have to expect his HR/FB to rise a bit, but Chen’s returned 4fWAR in his first two years while earning all of $6.6m.
1: Miller, 2B
2: Seager, 3B
3: Morales, DH
4: Morse, RF
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Smoak, 1B
7: Saunders, CF
8: Ryan, SS
9: Blanco, C
SP: Joe Saunders
Well, they’ve got more righties in the line-up to counter Chen’s platoon advantage, but Ryan/Blanco aren’t confidence-inspiring.
Stephen Pryor’s been shut down for the season due to a problem with his triceps. He’s been rehabbing his way back from the 60-day dl with a lat issue, and given the upheaval in the M’s bullpen, this is a tough break. But given the M’s aren’t in the playoff hunt, it makes sense to get him back 100% healthy for 2014.
Game 110, Mariners at Orioles
Erasmo Ramirez vs. Scott Feldman, 4:05pm
The M’s hope Erasmo can regain his command and sharp change-up tonight following their 4th straight loss. With the Angels comeback win last night (I bet that felt somewhat cathartic for a team that suffered three consecutive walk-off HR losses), the M’s are now back in 4th, a half-game back of the Halos. Baltimore’s two straight wins have coincided with Tampa’s two straight losses, which means the top of the AL East is a fascinating three-way race between the Orioles, Red Sox and Rays.
Scott Feldman came to Baltimore in an early-July trade with the Cubs. Our fearless leader had praised the Cubs signing Feldman, and liked Baltimore picking him up for the stretch run. The reason? Feldman looked like a very good buy-low candidate after a poor ERA marred some solid peripherals. Feldman’s turned in a typical Feldman season (K% around 17%, BB% around 6-7%, HR/9 around 1), and some BABIP luck and an improved strand rate have his ERA below 4.
Back in 2012, Dave also noted that Feldman has shown reverse platoon splits over his career, pointing to his split/change as the big reason why (similar to Iwakuma’s reverse splits). He’s still got slightly reversed splits, but here’s the weird thing: that change/split pitch? He’s ditched it. As you’ve probably guessed, Feldman’s a tinkerer, always tweaking his approach (and that spirit seemed to rub off on Brandon McCarthy, whose career reinvention surpassed anything Feldman’s done). He’s been a four-pitch guy for quite a while: a sinker, cutter, curve and change have been his pitches for many years. In 2008, he threw the sinker most of all, with the cutter his second-most used offering. In 2009, he threw the cutter most, with the change-up languishing in 4th. He was mostly the same in 2010, though he threw proportionally more curves, and then he missed most of 2011 with injuries. When he returned in 2012, he threw more sinkers and more change-ups than ever. This year, he’s nearly dropped the change and he’s throwing more curves again. It’s not like one approach is terrible – as we’ve seen, he’s been very consistent in K%, HR%, etc. But with 90mph velocity, tinkering probably helps keep him in the league.
1: Miller, SS
2: Franklin, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Morse, RF
7: Smoak, 1B
8: Saunders, CF
9: Quintero, C
SP: Erasmoooo
So, Dustin Ackley’s reign as starting CF appears to be well and truly over, as Saunders’ hot streak (and his superior D) give him the job, and Morse’s return forces Ackley to the bench.
Biggest prospect taking the hill in the M’s minors is Pulaski’s Edwin Diaz. Tacoma turns to Hector Noesi, who is not the biggest prospect in the M’s minors today. Double-header in Everett starting at 5 if you want to go see some baseball. The AquaSox are hosting Boise, the Cubs NWL affiliate, and the team with #2 overall pick Kris Byrant playing for them. They’ve also got OF Trevor Gretzky, whose dad was sort of famous, I’m told.
Smart Baseball
All right, it’s been an ugly little stretch, but some neat things have happened. Felix mowed right through probably the best offense in baseball. Michael Saunders is turning it on just as Nick Franklin is turning it off, which is necessary to maintain our semblance of a positive attitude. Yesterday’s game, though nightmarish, afforded a number of different things to blame, like umpires, and relievers, and a non-manager manager gesturing with the wrong arm. Things haven’t been dull or completely and utterly bad, and Kyle Seager bunted for an RBI base hit.
That was Thursday. This is what Seager looked at, defensively, as he stood in the box with a runner on third:
That’s a heavy shift, with three defenders between first and second and the third baseman playing shortstop. Mike Blowers remarked it was the first time he could remember seeing Seager get shifted. It’s been unusual to see a Mariners hitter get shifted, because it’s usually good hitters who get shifted, and, yeah. Shifting, defensively, makes a lot of sense, depending on hitter traits and pitcher type. But this kind of shift leaves a big gaping obvious hole at third. That’s the kind of shift that can be beaten by a well-placed bunt. Wouldn’t you know it:
Seager dropped a well-placed bunt and the Mariners scored a run. Here’s the video. All people could talk about was how smart Seager is, how heads-up that play was. People complimented Seager’s situational awareness, and it felt like a real clever gamble. The only thing about this being considered smart baseball is that it’s actually really obvious baseball.
You bunt to beat the shift. If the defense is going to shift like that, you beat it by bunting. No, you’re not going to be successful all of the time, but you’re going to get a lot of hits, and you’re going to produce more than you would by swinging away. That’s all but guaranteed, at least with a little practice, and everyone who gets shifted ought to practice bunting. People don’t bunt mostly because of their egos. Hitters feel bad about altering their approaches, and they don’t want to sacrifice their power. Defenses exploit this mentality. In a word, that’s stupid. It’s all testosterone-y and stupid. Maybe bunting feels weak, or cheap, but hits are hits. Hits are good for your line and good for your team.
Yeah, if you get shifted and you constantly bunt, the defense is going to respond by un-shifting, at least to such an extreme degree. That’s when you swing away, because the thing about this game theory is that it’s apparent when you’re in the box what the infield is doing. Nothing is hidden. The third baseman can either field a bunt down the line or he can’t. Then the hitter can respond to that. When shifted, you bunt. When not shifted, you don’t bunt. Maybe you don’t bunt against the shift in every single situation, but you do in most. Even being successful half the time will make you amazing, relative to what would get done otherwise.
There are basically two possibilities. In one, it’s smart to bunt, because it’s a free hit, and hitters are dumb for not doing it more. In the other, it’s a lot harder to bunt decently than you’d think, so it’s less obvious. In the former, a bunt attempt is the clear preference. In the latter, it’s less clear, and a quality bunt is less about being smart and more about just executing well. When a hitter hits a dinger, people don’t say he played smart baseball. He just executed well with the swing.
Obviously this isn’t intended as anything against Kyle Seager. Kyle Seager is making me love him, and that was a hell of an RBI bunt single against the shift. He’s an All-Star level position player, on the Mariners, and he’s young and under team control forever. This is more about our collective response to the bunt attempt. Seager was praised for being clever and creative for doing the really obvious thing that would benefit both him and his team. It’s not so much smart that Seager bunted as it is stupid that other people don’t bunt more. So Seager is smart relative to the lefty-hitting norm, but the lefty-hitting norm isn’t smart.
I guess everything’s relative. I’m glad Kyle Seager isn’t a lefty-hitting idiot. He should be commended for not having so much of an ego that he did a dumb thing instead of the obvious thing. Bunt. Everybody, bunt against the shift. You’ll be amazed how quickly that shift would go away. They’re giving you a hit and you don’t even have to swing. We’ve grown so accustomed to decisions so dumb we lavish praise on that which simply isn’t. Again, glad about the whole Seager thing, but as a broader point, this is what we take to be smart baseball. Think on that for a minute.
Game 109, Mariners at Orioles
Aaron Harang vs. Chris Tillman, 4:05pm
All right, a three game series against a good Baltimore team – how’s everyone feeling about the M’s? For a unit that contributes comparatively little to overall team WAR, a bullpen sure feels important. Yes, yes, leverage means that its contributions mean more in terms of wins and losses than their innings (and WAR) would predict, but sabermetrics is always reminding us that it’s not some sort of rare skill (within professional baseball, not the general population) to be able to protect a 3, 4, or 5 run lead in the 9th. That seems impossible to fathom today, despite the fact that a pieced-together M’s bullpen held Boston scoreless (and hitless!) for six innings the previous day. Baseball feels awful right now because the results don’t seem to match up with the team’s overall strength. No one’s claiming the M’s are a playoff team, but they “deserved” more from that series, with two solid starting pitching performances, some decent hitting, great relief work, etc., all of which was undone by sequencing.
The M’s head south now to face Chris Tillman, who’s 4-0 against them with an ERA of 0.98. In over 100 career PAs against him, the M’s are getting on base at a .194 clip. Of course, past performance is not an indicator of future results, and the fact that Tillman was able to deal with Jesus Montero and Mune Kawasaki doesn’t guarantee he’ll be effective against Brad Miller and Nick Franklin. With that said, the M’s have been throwing lefty-heavy line-ups at Tillman, and he hasn’t struggled yet. In fact, Tillman’s got reverse splits for his career, and at this point he’s looking more and more like the 2013 version of John Lackey. Like Lackey, Tillman’s four-seam fastball has gradually migrated to a very high vertical movement, almost zero horizontal movement mix, and like Lackey’s, for whatever reason, this combo is hard for lefties to drive. It’s not terribly hard for righties, however, but the M’s don’t have too many righties capable of driving a fastball except for Mike Morse (Blanco/Quintero are *capable* but it’s not really the reason why they’re in the line-up). Tillman throws a curve, cutter and change, with the curve the most effective overall, and by far the most effective against lefties.
The biggest outlier in Tillman’s record isn’t the movement on his fastball or his reverse splits, however. It’s his strand-rate, and the resultant FIP-ERA gap. For the second consecutive year, Tillman’s sporting a very good RA in a tough division while carrying a bad FIP. Last year, his ERA was 2.93 while his FIP was 4.25. This year, the ERA’s at 3.62 and his FIP’s up at 4.72. The big reason his FIP’s so high is that he’s got a home run problem (well, at least against non-Seattle teams). That extreme vertical movement means that batters have hit his fastball in the air on about 72% of the time they put it in play. What’s not so obvious is why right-handers hit home runs on *more* of those balls in play than lefties, but it’s the same pattern we saw with Lackey. That doesn’t explain the strand rate, though. And at first glance, there’s no reason it should be so high: he’s got slightly better K% and better HR%, but that’s not because he’s great with men on, it’s that he’s been *bad* with no one on. And it’s not a BABIP fluke – his BABIP is lowest with no one on, and is worst with men in scoring position. I’ve got no real explanation for the strand rate, so we can hope 1) that it will regress and regress *today* and 2) that Harang and the bullpen will conspire to profit from any such regression *today*.
1: Miller, SS
2: Franklin, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Morse, RF
7: Smoak, 1B
8: Saunders, CF
9: Quintero, C
SP: Aaron Harang
I’m sure you’ve all been waiting to see where Robert Andino would end up, and now we know: he’s off to the Pirates’ AAA affiliate, Indianapolis for a PTBNL/cash. This deal occurred before the deadline, but I’ve just now been able to stave off the yawning long enough to link to it.
The Rainiers losing streak continues apace, and tonight Andrew Carraway will try to put a stop to it. He’ll be faced by former Royals prospect Danny Duffy, who’s battling back from TJ surgery last year. Victor Sanchez starts for Clinton and Eddie Campbell for Pulaski.
Mariners Swept Down to Baltimore
| MARINERS (50-58) | ΔMs | ORIOLES (60-49) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | 14.9 (9th) | -3.7 | -5 (15th) | Mariners |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | -28.3 (27th) | -3.8 | 14.4 (10th) | Orioles |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 15.2 (11th) | -0.8 | -38.2 (28th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | -4.1 (22nd) | -1.5 | -1.1 (18th) | Orioles |
| OVERALL (RAA) | -2.3 (12th) | -9.9 | -29.9 (19th) | MARINERS |
I also recently attempted going to Boston but instead ended up in Baltimore. I know how it feels, Mariners. It feels crummy and stiflingly humid.
That was some collapse. It seems almost unfair that it happened in a game in August between a team already likely to go to the playoffs and a team already likely to not go to the playoffs. In the grander sense of the story line for the season of these two teams, that game didn’t matter. It should, being nearly monumental in individual scope.
Instead, there’s some expected statements and now the team moves on to Baltimore, the organization where most Mariner trade rumors were connecting to at the deadline. Now’s your chance, Morse and others, to show them in person what they missed out on trading for. Or possibly the Orioles weren’t interested at all. Or perhaps they were and even offered above value but the Mariners turned them down. There are many possibilities. I wish each team kept an official historian who recorded all the behind-the-scenes stuff and later released it to the public.
As mentioned in the podcast and other places, Nick Franklin’s strikeout rate is quite elevated recently. You can see after the jump that he’s at 21 strikeouts over the past 14 days. That’s a whole hell of a lot. Literally. Hell is a unit of measurement; look it up. Anyways, on the positive side is that Franklin’s swing and contact rates are both still fine, not at all in line with producing so many strikeouts going forward.
Orioles’ reliever Tommy Hunter has faced 42 hitters in the past four weeks. He’s walked one of them and he’s struck out two of them. The other 39 have put the ball in play. So that’s pitching to contact.
Chris Davis has only two home runs since the All-Star Break. Jinxed!