So You’re Waiting For Robinson Cano To Hit Dingers
Do you roll your eyes now when Robinson Cano comes to the plate? Do you feel like his at-bats are just demonstrations of slightly different ways to arrive at a weak grounder to second? You shouldn’t — after today, Cano owns the third-highest batting average in the American League, at .318. Not that we pretty much ever talk about batting average, since there are better statistics, but sometimes a simple statistic is more than good enough to tell a story. Cano’s been getting a lot of hits. He’s batting what he batted with the Yankees.
But there are different parts of hitting. There’s hitting for contact and average, which Cano is doing. His discipline is basically okay, in that he’s never been a huge walker. What’s been missing is the power component. Cano’s line, at present, is an almost exact mirror of Ichiro’s big-league career, and I’m not the first person to notice this. Cano’s been a hitting machine, but for the most part he’s been a hitting-singles machine, and eyebrows have been raised across the country. It’s kind of humiliating to be stuck on one homer.
Of course, what people will say is that Cano isn’t a classic power hitter. Of course, those people are correct. Of course, that kind of misses the point. Robinson Cano isn’t known as a power hitter. Hisashi Iwakuma isn’t known as a strikeout pitcher. But it would be a problem if Iwakuma were averaging 10% strikeouts. At issue is that Cano is below his own established baseline, that being the baseline of a non-slugger. You expect an ISO around .200. He’s posting an ISO under .100. That’s a legitimate thing to discuss, after a quarter of a season.
What I will attempt to do, now, is be reassuring. And this is how this starts: following are three balls in play that Cano has very recently hit. If you’ve been watching, you’ll recognize them.
In each case, Cano came extremely close to hitting a dinger. In each case, Cano settled for a double, but there are doubles that are almost singles and there are doubles that are almost homers. This isn’t great analysis, but let’s just pretend those were homers. Then Cano would have four homers and a .441 slugging percentage, with a .123 ISO. He’d have those numbers doing basically nothing differently. The ISO would still be low, but it wouldn’t be as much of a talking point. People notice when a guy has one home run. That “1” is pretty conspicuous, and a “3” or a “4” would be a lot more acceptable.
You can’t just give Cano homers, but the point is more that pop is still in there, easy pop, the kind of pop where Cano can hit the ball 350 feet with what looks like a simple flick of the wrists. There’s no reason to believe the power’s gone, right? How would one even explain that?
You could say there’s something wrong with his swing. There might’ve been something wrong with his swing, early on. You’ve probably noticed that Cano’s groundball rate is up. But it’s up, and going down. I would say that this is an encouraging split.
| Split | Groundball% | Fly ball% | Line drive% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-13 | 46% | 31% | 23% |
| April | 59% | 22% | 19% |
| May | 44% | 31% | 25% |
The first month of the year, Cano was putting way too many balls on the ground. That was not what he was supposed to look like. In May, though, he’s been himself, over 68 balls in play to date. The homers haven’t been there yet, but he’s driven the ball in the air. Today, while Cano hit his first pop-up of the season, he also hit another fly ball and a trio of line drives. While the April sample is still bigger than the May sample, and while the numbers overall are troubling, it would appear that Cano is finding himself. He’s doing the things that’ve made him so good, and he’s come awful close to busting the homer slump. It’s not that Robinson Cano is coming — it’s that it looks like he’s arrived, more or less.
It just takes time to recover from a bad start. It takes time to recover statistically, and it takes time to recover in terms of fan perception. We were introduced to Cano as a groundball machine, so it’s going to take time for that to be undone, so we can see Cano as he is and has been. He’s a guy who consistently sprays line drives, and he’s a guy who hits more home runs than he’s hit. Remember: the Mariners have this guy for ten years. Eventually, we’re going to see him in decline, and maybe when he’s declining, he’ll put everything on the dirt. We’ll have time to be frustrated by Robinson Cano. But right now, Cano’s coming out of his slump, and while his April sample is bigger than his May sample, his track record is bigger than his April sample, and his track record is obscene. The hits are already coming. The extra-base hits are presumably going to. I expect we’re going to love this guy before we don’t.
Game 43, Mariners at Twins
King Felix vs. Ricky Nolasco, 11:10am
Well, at least Nolasco’s not a ground ball pitcher. After getting shut down by Samuel Deduno and Kyle Gibson, the M’s get one of the Twins HR-plagued fly-ballers. The Twins’ 2013 starters posted the worst FIP, the worst ERA, the worst K rate, and the worst strand rate in all of baseball last year, so the fact that the Twins committed a combined $73 million on two FA hurlers seemed reasonable. Nolasco was the big prize, signing a 4-year, $49m deal after a solid season split between the Marlins and Dodgers.
The righty has always posted solid FIP numbers, with a career 3.80 mark over 1363 career innings. But, like a poor man’s Javier Vasquez, his actual runs allowed have generally come in much higher. His ERA’s been higher than his FIP each year since 2008, and in several, the gap’s exceeded one full run in two of those years. It’s not like you can point to one specific weakness; it’s not all BABIP, it’s not all sequencing. He’s just disappointed. No one capable of posting 4.4 K:BB ratios over a full year (or two!) of work in a big league rotation should post ERAs of 5. If you’ve read this site at all, you know that ERA can be misleading and that Nolasco probably isn’t a replacement-level starter, which is what his RA would tell you right now. You can’t justify the argument that Nolasco is 100% responsible for what happens once a ball is put in play. But 1,300+ innings suggest that he’s probably not 0% responsible either.
Nolasco throws a 91-93mph four-seam and two-seam fastball. His primary breaking ball’s his slider, which was very effective for many years, but has been his Achilles’ heel this year. He’s got a curve ball, but his other weapon is the oh-so-trendy splitter. It’s more like Dan Haren’s in that it looks/acts like a change-up, so it’s not terribly surprising that he only throws it to lefties. Lefties have given Nolasco trouble throughout his career, and they’re destroying him so far in 2014, but it’s not the splitter that they’re hitting. That may just be noise, or the fact that he can’t get to the splitter because they’re crushing fastballs first, but even a struggling M’s line-up isn’t a great match-up for Nolasco (at least on paper).
1: Jones, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Seager, 3B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: King Felix
Happy 34th anniversary of the Mt. St Helens eruption. It’s one of my earliest memories as a kid – going up to the attic and looking south at the towering ash cloud.
With Brad Miller struggling, it’s not surprise that the M’s are considering re-calling the hot hitting Nick Franklin. But Franklin’s been playing some OF recently, and Lloyd McClendon’s mentioned that positional flexibility’s a key to getting Franklin more playing time. After spending the spring asserting that the SS battle was an open competition, Franklin seems to be well and truly out of the running (though he could obviously be a factor for the M’s as a utility OF/IF). That’s probably got as much to do with Chris Taylor as anything, and I honestly wonder if they’d call up Taylor if he was healthy.
Erasmo Ramirez starts for Tacoma against Sacramento. The big story involving the RiverCats this morning is the rumor that they’ll switch affiliation to the other Bay Area club, the Giants, as early as next season. Don’t know if the A’s would take Fresno or if there’d be further swapping. Tyler Pike starts for High Desert. He’s walked four batters in each of his past five starts.
Taijuan Walker and James Paxton both had bullpen sessions yesterday and seem fine today. Sounds like they may do a simulated game on Tuesday.
Game 42, Mariners at Twins
Roenis Elias vs. Samuel Deduno, 4:10pm
Sooooo, the M’s struggled against another sinkerballer last night, as Kyle Gibson limited the M’s to a run over 7 innings. It’s always tough to apportion blame and credit on the pitching and defense side of the ball, and it’s doubly so when we’re trying to figure out if the M’s have a serious problem with ground ball pitchers or if they had a serious problem with Kyle Gibson. Today’s game offers a test. Same park, same offense, lots of sinking fastballs, but a different guy throwing them. Samuel Deduno is essentially the Twins swingman, having made 7 relief appearances and just 2 starts. Obviously, the M’s found the Rays swingman to their liking, but Deduno’s very different, and very strange.
Deduno gets a ton of grounders despite not actually throwing a sinker. He doesn’t need to: the vertical movement on his regular old fastball is unlike anyone else’s. Sort pitchers from the pitch fx era by vertical movement on a four seam fastball and Deduno’s comes in the lowest, and it’s not even close.* Justin Masterson’s swerving, low-3/4 four seam is in 2nd place, but at nearly 2″ more movement. It’s not exactly a blazing fast heater, and unlike Masterson’s, it has almost no horizontal movement. It’s not deceptive, it’s just so far outside of how a normal pitch behaves that hitters tend to swing over it. It’s the equal and opposite issue that hitters have with Chris Young’s extreme *rising* FB – the fact that they know it’s coming and that it’s coming in at a pleasing velocity doesn’t always enable them to actually hit it.
He’s primarily a FB and curveball pitcher, but he’s also got a change-up that he throws to lefties. Earlier in his career, he struggled against *righties* which is pretty odd, but this year, his splits are much more normal. His curve’s suddenly more effective against righties, but if you look at his career splits, he looks like a left-hander – his K:BB ratio is awful against righties, but he’s managed to strike out an un-Twins-like number of lefties. No HR issues to lefties, but an elevated HR rate to righties. Again, that’s disappeared this year, but I’m not sure if he made a conscious change to his approach or if this is luck/maturity/regression cocktail.
Just like Gibson, Deduno had some HR problems in his first call-up in 2011, and like Gibson, they’ve largely disappeared. He’s a Twins pitcher, so he’s not an overpowering guy, and teams that match up well with him – like Detroit, who, to be fair, match up well with most teams – have hit him hard. But the M’s have been completely befuddled by Deduno; he’s been excellent against them in 2012 and 2013. His last start against them came last July, and he shut them out on just 3 hits over 7 innings. On paper, this is…this is something of a challenge.
1: Jones, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Smoak, 1B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: Elias
Good day in the M’s minor leagues, as Victor Sanchez takes the hill for AA Jackson. Jordan Pries starts for Tacoma, while Jochi Ogando starts for High Desert.
* Who ranks at the top of the list? The guy with the most vertical movement on a fastball? Chris Young, who sadly wasn’t fooling many Twins hitters last night.
Game 41, Mariners at Twins
Chris Young vs. Kyle Gibson, 5:10pm
Coming in to 2011, Kyle Gibson was the Twins #1 prospect. A sure top-10 overall pick, the RHP out of Missouri slid after his velocity dropped his junior year. He was effective without 95mph heat, thanks to great command and a swerving two-seam fastball that produced tons of weak ground balls. Still, many teams were scared off by the apparent trouble. He sailed through the low minors, posting good-but-not-great K rates, and tiny HR rates. He was flying up the ladder in 2011 when his velocity suddenly dropped again, and he was absolutely pounded in a few AAA starts. This time, he needed surgery.
He came back for a handful of MiLB innings and then played the Arizona Fall League (I think he started one game opposite James Paxton that year), and it seemed like he hadn’t missed a beat. He touched 95, but sat more like 92-94, showed a decent slider, and pounded the zone. A solid year in AAA in 2013 got him a promotion, but over the course of 10 starts, he looked like a different pitcher. He got ground balls, but he was wild – his zone% in 2013 was just under 42%, compared to a league average of 49%. Out of 187 starting pitchers with at least 50 IP, Gibson ranked 184th in zone%. To make matters worse, he gave up 7 HRs to go with his 20 BBs (and 5 HBPs); it all added up to an ERA of 6.53 and an ugly FIP. It’s a somewhat reassuring reminder that other clubs sometimes struggle with the AAA-MLB transition. Everyone agreed he had nothing left to learn in the minors, but it’s pretty clear he was starting from scratch in the bigs.
It could only get better from there, and to be fair to Gibson, it has. He’s limiting HRs again, and he’s throwing more strikes, but the walk rate’s still far too high, and he’s incorporated the Twins’ organizational philosophy of shunning the strikeout. So far this year, he’s walked 18 and K’d just 17. Gibson’s two-seam fastball is a 91-93mph pitch with good arm-side run and some sink (though not a ton). He pairs it was a four-seamer, a good looking slider and a change-up that he’ll use against lefties. The change occasionally looks like a solid pitch, but he doesn’t throw a ton of them. Given his sinker-heavy arsenal, he’s got some platoon splits, with lefties posting a .366 wOBA against him (in 239 PAs). The M’s can throw out a lefty-heavy line-up, and Gibson doesn’t have a real wipe-out pitch, so this should be easy, right? Well, the M’s have really struggled thus far against ground-ball pitchers. They’re doing OK against fly-ballers (although they sure didn’t LOOK fine against Jake Odorizzi), but they’ve managed just a .510 OPS against sinkerballing ground-ball pitchers. Fly-ball *hitters* would be a great match-up against Gibson, but the M’s don’t really have any of those. Logan Morrison’s been more of a fly-ball guy, but he’s hurt. Stefen Romero’s elevated the ball, but he’s struggling and a righty, so he’s not in the line-up. Corey Hart’s the best the M’s can muster. Normally, this’d be a great match-up for Robby Cano, but he’s always been a GB guy, and his GB:FB ratio has soared this year to the highest mark of his career (SSS alert, of course) – one of the big reasons why he’s struggling.
1: Jones, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Seager, 3B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: Chris Young
The injury bug continues to bite the M’s system, as Chris Taylor’s sidelined with a sprained finger, and LHP Anthony Fernandez looks set to join the long line of hurlers to have Tommy John surgery (hat tip: Ryan Divish).
Minor league starters tonight include Edwin Diaz, Andrew Carraway, and Dylan Unsworth.
Game 40, Rays at Mariners
Brandon Maurer vs. Jake Odorizzi, 12:40pm
Early game today following last night’s crushing 9th inning collapse.
Jake Odorizzi was a first round pick by Jack Zduriencik’s Brewers in 2008. Aftter moving to Kansas City in the Zack Greinke deal, he wound up with Tampa as the second piece in the huge Wil Myers-for-James Shields deal that you may have heard about. Odorizzi had moved steadily up the minors, posting solid K rates, decent walk rates, but somewhat underwhelming ERAs. Most scouts saw the 91-92mph fastball, a slider and a work-in-progress change and slotted him as a back of the rotation kind of guy. While he never showed big platoon splits in the minors, major league lefties ate him alive in very brief cameos in 2012 and 2013 – a phenomenon Brandon Maurer knows pretty well.
This season, Odorizzi decided to make a change to his, uh, change. His change-up functioned like a slower sinker, with a lot of horizontal movement but not a lot of drop. As his fastball’s a very straight, rising FB, lefties had no trouble elevating the ball against him, and with a change up that didn’t move vertically, lefties were well positioned to do some damage against him. So, learning from teammate Alex Cobb, Odorizzi dropped his old change and picked up a splitter. So is he an Alex Cobb clone? (As the real Cobb’s out injured, the Rays could certainly use one). Well, no, not yet. In a month-plus of 2014, he’s already given up 3 HRs on his splitter, and lefties are still lighting him up. Worryingly, so are righties.
With any new pitch, there are going to be some adjustments. He’s trying to keep the pitch down and out of the zone, just like Cobb (and Iwakuma and Tanaka) does, but it can drift up and into the center of the plate at times. He’s also adjusting how many he throws. In his first start of the year, he threw over 30 of them. Since then, he’s backed off a bit, and will still show his slow curve to lefties as well. He’s been hit hard this year, but he’s also shown flashes; in his last start, he struck out 11 in five shutout innings against Cleveland (admittedly, not a strong hitting club). Young pitchers are always a work in progress. Young pitchers trying to master a new pitch are still in the process of being in progress. I have no idea what Odorizzi’s going to do today, but the M’s better stack the line-up with lefties.
1: Jones, CF
2: Romero, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Seager, 3B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Buck, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: Maurer
Hmmm. To bad about Saunders’ hyperextended knee. Saunders-over-Romero would be ideal.
Maurer’s splits are still a thing, apparently. Perhaps it’s due to facing an NL line-up, maybe it’s the luck of the draw, but the righty’s faced many more same-handed hitters so far this year. And that’ll continue today, as the Rays have five righties in their line-up. Joyce/Zobrist/DeJesus is going to be a tricky way to start, though.
Game 39, Rays at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. David Price, 7:10pm
Two of the biggest names in the AL East have posted incredible K:BB ratios and sparkling xFIPs. David Price leads all of baseball with his K:BB of nearly *10*. A bit further back, but still impressive, is CC Sabathia‘s 4.8 mark. Both have seen their strikeout rate increase and their walk rate drop below 2/9 (Price is now walking a Cliff Lee-like 1 per 9 IP). Price’s RA is 4.86 while Sabathia’s sits at a grisly 6.07. Thanks to Chris Young and Roenis Elias, we’ve talked a bit about pitchers whose actual runs-given up comes in far shy of what their fielding independent stats would predict. In David Price, we have the poster child for the opposite phenomenon.
Like Sabathia, there’s no mystery about this – it’s not sequencing, and while his BABIP’s higher than it’s been, that’s not the problem either. The problem is home runs. Sabathia had never run a HR/9 above 1 in his long career until 2013. So far this year, it’s nearly 2. Similarly, Price hadn’t run a HR/9 over 1 since 2009, a year in which he threw 128 innings and was a four-seam/slider pitcher. In recent years, he’s been a sinker/cutter/change-up guy, and his GB% started creeping up while his HRs allowed dropped accordingly. Price was excellent last year, as his new attack-the-zone philosophy produced a great K:BB ratio while he also limited homers. But something changed: batters, especially righties, stopped hitting his sinker on the ground. His GB/FB ratio vs. righties went from 1.8 to 1.2, and in a tiny sample of 2014, it’s dropped below 1. He didn’t pay for it in 2013, as fewer of those fly balls went over the fence; his HR/FB last year was the 2nd lowest of his career. That hasn’t happened this year.
Many point to Sabathia as a bounce-back candidate due to his excellent K:BB ratio and insane HR/FB% of 23%. Sabathia’s getting plenty of grounders, but whatever doesn’t bounce seems to leave the yard. While Price’s K:BB is even better, his HR/FB isn’t historically out of whack. It’s high, and I fully expect Price to post better runs-allowed numbers than he has to date. He’s an excellent pitcher, after all. But the question is what does he look like with a perfectly normal HR/FB of 10-12%? With a sinker that isn’t making batters top the ball, he’s going to give up some elevated contact. If he can keep that contact in the park, he’s an ace. But what if home runs are the price he pays for a 1.01 BB/9? Again: a big chunk of his awful HR/FB so far this year has come from the 3 HRs *lefties* have hit off of him. He still dominates lefties, and they still have a 2 GB/FB ratio. That may be luck. But his GB% has dropped on all of his pitches against righties, and his sinker – like all sinkers – is much more effective against lefties. I’m not saying that Price is going to end up like Cesar Ramos, whose sinkless sinker produced an offensive explosion for the M’s last night. But I think it could keep him from being a true #1. Hell, you could argue that, when he’s healthy, Alex Cobb has been the better pitcher. And Chris Archer’s neck and neck with Price right now, though of course that’s more a compliment to the Rays depth than an indictment of Price. In any event, I’m not going to cry about the M’s missed opportunity to acquire Price in trade.
Iwakuma can teach Price a thing or two about succeeding in MLB despite an elevated HR rate, and HR/FB ratio.
1: Jones, CF
2: Romero, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Seager, 3B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: Iwakuma
The Rainiers played an early game today in Las Vegas. It was school day, with thousands of kids packing Cashman Field, each armed with a vuvuzela. Please, keep Rainiers announcer Mike Curto in your thoughts tonight. With rest and with physical/mental therapy, he WILL get through this.
Cam Hobson pitches for AA Jackson today, while the enigmatic Tyler Pike goes for High Desert. Pike’s a top-10 M’s prospect, but a very odd 24:25 K:BB ratio isn’t helping his stock. Gabriel Guerrero’s stock is still rising, however – BP had some good things to say about him here ($).
Game 38, Rays at Mariners
King Felix vs. Cesar Ramos, 7:10pm
Happy Felix Day
It’s was a gorgeous day in the Northwest, Felix is pitching and the M’s are above .500. Seems like a pretty good evening for a ballgame.
Lefty Cesar Ramos was a first rounder (pick 35, so just barely) in the 2005 MLB draft that M’s fans try not to talk about. The Padres picked him, and for a while, everything looked OK. Ramos was primarily a FB/CU pitcher who had pretty good stuff, but generally pitched to contact. It wasn’t a huge surprise that he wasn’t striking anyone out in the minors, but I think people hoped he could be a back-of-the-rotation guy eventually. Upon reaching AAA, though, his control – one of his calling cards – began to desert him. He bounced to the big leagues for brief fill-ins, but couldn’t stick, and his performances in AAA weren’t getting any better. The Pads tried him in the pen, and then, following a poor showing in 8 IP with the big club, packaged him with prospects for SS Jason Bartlett of Tampa Bay.
Bartlett went on to produce -0.9 WAR for SD, while the Rays have converted Ramos into a decent reliever/swing man. His control is still AWOL, his velocity’s down since 2010-11, and his FIP has been bad, but he’s given the Rays some decent innings, and can make spot starts like tonight. He throws a four-seamer, but he’s primarily a sinker/slider guy these days, with a change-up that he’ll throw right-handers. Of note, he had a pretty good GB% (SSS alert!) with the Padres, and the Rays got him to throw his sinker instead of his rising FB. So it’s a bit odd to me that Ramos now looks like a clear fly-ball pitcher – his sinker now gets fewer grounders per pitch, or grounders per ball in play than his four-seamer did years ago.
Ramos has walked *14* batters in five very brief starts, so the M’s should be patient. He’s never made it six innings in his career (again, he’s mostly been a reliever), but the right approach will get the M’s some at-bats against the back end of the Rays bullpen.
Felix has been frustrating to watch in recent starts. He’ll look great for a while, then succumb to a big inning. He’ll strike out a number of hitters, then do whatever that was against the A’s five days ago. Right now, his strand rate’s at 66.7%, the lowest rate of his career. Hitters have a .310 wOBA against him with men on, compared to just .260 with the bases empty. Is it a lack of focus? Boredom? I’d forgive him that, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. With runners on, Felix strikes out MORE hitters and walks FEWER. His FIP’s great. The big difference is BABIP, and while it’s a bit simplistic to say that BABIP=luck, it’s pretty clear that sequencing and luck have been Felix’s undoing (Ok, that’s too strong – “the things that have made him look less regal”), not something more meaningful like terrible command or tons of HRs. Felix needs his D to pick him up a bit, and frankly, Felix’s D needs Felix to pick them up, too. Get some K’s, Felix.
1: Jones, CF
2: Romero, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Seager, 3B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: El Cartelua
In the Minors, Tacoma continues its series against Las Vegas with Erasmo Ramirez taking on Jacob deGrom – both of whom will almost certainly play in the Majors later this season. Perhaps the bigger story is the return of AA righty Victor Sanchez. The zaftig righty went on the DL with “forearm tightness” about a month ago, but he’s scheduled to start tonight against Tennessee.
Podcast: The Mariners are above .500!
Monday morning podcast(s) continues/begins.
The Mariners played 8 games the past week and ended up 5-3, good enough to get over .500. In fact, it gave us so little to complain about that Jeff and I ended up complaining about baseball and sports itself instead. Because endless pitching changes are just the worst.
Podcast with Jeff and Matthew: Direct link! || iTunes link! || RSS/XML link!
Thanks again to those that helped support the show and/or StatCorner work in general last week, and in the past, and hopefully in the future. It’s truly appreciated.
If you grab these from either the direct or XML links (i.e. not from iTunes), you might get a malware warning. There’s an issue with podtrac, the service I use to track metrics, that is being resolved. Rest assured that the podcasts themselves are fine, the podtrac links above are simply re-directs to StatCorner.com
Game 37, Royals at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Jeremy Guthrie, 1:10pm
Happy Mother’s Day
The M’s have a terrible wOBA and wRC+, and if you’ve watched the team at all, that can’t come as a surprise. Their pitching’s been very solid, albeit not exactly at Tigers-starting-rotation level. There are a couple of ways to look at this: 1) they’ve been lucky in sequencing on both sides of the ball, but they don’t have the talent of Texas/Oakland/Anaheim. 2) This team battles, their starters keep them in just about every game, and the M’s are eminently watchable in mid-May.
There’s a lot of reasons to question the M’s run or see the holes in the squad, but today’s a day to just enjoy the fact that Chris Young was excellent last night and beat Yordano Ventura. That Roenis Elias is on the hill and I’m confident about that. Baseball is really strange.
1: Jones, CF
2: Miller, SS
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Seager, 3B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Romero, RF
9: Zunino, C
SP: Elias
Game 36, Royals at Mariners
Chris Young vs. Yordano Ventura, 6:10pm
Back on April 18th, I mentioned that The pitching match-up between Chris Young and Nate Eovaldi had a chance to feature a rare gap between average fastball velocities of 12mph. Not for the first time, real life decided not to use my handy storyline and went with something boring. Chris Young had, for him, a lively fastball at nearly 87, while Eovaldi sat just above 97. It’s about as big a delta as MLB offers, but while Mark Buehrle still stymies hitters, we’ve got to do better. Thanks to Yordano Ventura, we will.
Ventura’s the talk of the AL, as he’s fixed the two issues that tarnished his first few MLB starts last year: walks and HRs. Ventura wasn’t dominant in MiLB largely due to the former malady, and I think many expected his HR rate to stay kind of high (Iwakuma high, not demote-him-now high) thanks to a FB that generated fly balls. This year, though, Ventura’s showing that a truly elite fastball makes its own rules. He’s striking out over 10/9, limiting HRs, and throwing strikes.
His curve has long been visually stunning, but with improved command, it’s turned into a real weapon. Batters swing and miss plenty, but they also top it for grounders, which helps Ventura keep his GB% over 50. But to me, the big improvement has been with his change up. It gets essentially the same number of whiffs and the same GB rate as the curve, giving him a third very good pitch, and allowing him to dominate lefties and righties alike.
The M’s offense could use a break after seeing two solid performances from Duffy and Vargas. Ventura, however, is not a break. Ventura is quickly moving from one of the most intriguing young arms to one of the best pitchers in the league. Sure, it’s really only been a month at that level, and maybe if the M’s are patient, his command could get a bit sloppy. Could easily happen. But right now, I’d rather face Sonny Gray or Yu Darvish.
1: Jones, CF
2: Miller, SS
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Buck, C
7: Ackley, LF
8: Saunders, RF
9: Bloomquist
SP: Young
Tough to face a guy like this with something of a second-choice line-up, but Seager’s illness forces their hand. Jones has been better than expected, but seeing him lead off is a reminder of just how bad M’s #1 hitters have been on the year – a combined .233/.287/.336 line.
3B Patrick Kivlehan, the ex-football player the M’s took out of Rutgers a few years ago, has been promoted to AA. Given his age, he absolutely needed to force a promotion. Well done to him for doing so – he was killing the ball. Of course, now DJ Peterson has the 3B role to himself, a fact that may have played into this move.
The big game in the minors is the rematch between Andrew Carraway and the Rainiers against Noah Syndergaard and the Las Vegas 51s. The first game was a pitchers duel the R’s ended winning in the 9th. Syndergaard is a flame thrower, and deservedly one of the top prospects in the minors, but the R’s made him work. Carraway was inefficient, but ended up with better results. Fun match up, and one with a massive FB velocity gap of its own.