Game 8, HOME OPENER: Astros at Mariners
James Paxton vs. Charlie Morton, 2:10pm
Early start today for the M’s home opener. After yesterday’s soul-destroying collapse in Anaheim, the M’s desperately need a win. Home field advantage and the team’s de facto ace on the mound would seem to put them in great position, but no position’s better than a six-run lead in the 9th, and we saw how that went.
This team is better than their record. They won’t continue to get zero or less than zero production out of Nelson Cruz or Kyle Seager. But it’s not enough to BE good – you have to PLAY good, too. Robinson Cano showed some signs of breaking out, and it’s just a matter of time for Cruz, but now that the M’s have whittled their margin of error down, they have to ensure that the supporting cast is ready to provide actual support. Leonys Martin has two singles in 25 trips to the plate, and his K rate continues to rise. Last year’s career high K rate was acceptable thanks to a similar increase in his power production. It’s very early, but Martin’s put up some of the worst at-bats on the club (and that’s a high bar), and that’s turning the bottom of the order into a black hole. It’s a fine line between “reactionary moves” and “swiftly addressing problems,” and the difference seems to depend on whether they work or not, but the M’s can’t afford to have the bottom of the line-up neutralize the top.
The other key area the M’s need to address is the bullpen. Edwin Diaz blew the save yesterday, and while his command’s been terrible, he’s going to figure it out. He’s still the best reliever the M’s have, and I’m reasonably confident he’ll figure it out. Altavilla’s been great as well. But after that, things get a little dicey. I mentioned it on twitter, but Evan Scribner looks like a completely different pitcher than the guy we saw last year or in his last year with the A’s. Scribner averaged 92 MPH on his fastball in 2015, and just shy of 91 in his abbreviated 2016. He looked normal in the spring, touching 92 and sitting at 91 in Peoria, but since the regular season began, he’s down 2 ticks to 89 MPH. Worse, the movement on his fastball’s gone. Scribner’s posted high K rates despite an average-to-below fastball speed in part thanks to well-above-average vertical “rise.” It was about 1.3 standard deviations better than average in 2015, and nearly 1.7 better in 2016, approaching 12″ of vertical movement. This year, his four seamer is *below* league average in vertical rise. Watching his ill-fated appearance in Anaheim, I wonder if he was missing his spots and leaving balls in the zone because he was anticipating movement that didn’t come. By statcast, his total spin rate is down by 150 RPM or so. His curve still seems OK – it’s actually a dead ringer for Houston starter Charlie Morton’s in terms of spin rate and movement (though Morton’s is 8 MPH faster). But if he can’t get to it thanks to a hittable fastball, that’s a problem. With 10 batters faced, it’s tempting to chalk it up to BABIP bad luck, but when his fastball looks *this* different, it’s a big red flag.
Nick Vincent’s velocity’s down as well, though the difference isn’t as stark. Thanks to command and some deception, Vincent’s produced strikeouts and a surprisingly low contact rate despite below-average velocity. His cutter (86-87 MPH) is his primary pitch, and it can make his mediocre fastball play up when he mixes it in. The problem is that the movement on his cutter’s down thus far, and thus nothing’s fooling anyone. His contact rate was 2 percentage points lower than the league average last year. It’s absurdly early, but it’s about 13 percentage points *higher* this year. These are not dispositive numbers; we have proved nothing, and as the saying goes, a good scout beats stats in tiny samples. But using a scouting eye makes it worse: Vincent’s looked hittable, and Scribner looked abysmal vs. the Angels. The M’s need to double check if anything’s wrong, and think carefully about their contingency plans. Altavilla seems to have already supplanted Scribner as the set-up guy who comes in for high-leverage situations, but the M’s need to figure out if James Pazos can do more.
This is all fairly bleak stuff for a home opener, so let’s just note that James Paxton looked every bit as good as we hoped in his first start. The velocity was there, he avoided hard contact (something that plagued him last year), and his curveball continues to improve. Paxton was everything M’s fans could’ve hoped for, and his match-up with fellow out-of-nowhere-velocity-gainer Charlie Morton was the best of the year so far. Morton’s got a ridiculously high-spin curve and now sits in the mid-90s, and seems to be worth more than the back-of-the-rotation contract he signed with Houston. I’d love the M’s to face someone worse in this spot, but to get their confidence back, the M’s need to go out and push around the Astros. Beating up on a 95 MPH fastball is just what Nelson Cruz needs right now, and while M’s fans are hoping the Astros don’t hit another dozen cheap HRs the way they did in Houston, I still think Safeco will be pretty HR-friendly this year. So hit it in the air against the ground-balling Morton and see what happens. Last year, the M’s started 2-6 thanks to an awful first homestand that saw them swept by the cellar-dwelling A’s. The club dusted themselves off, and quickly got back into contention. The M’s have already had their April swoon, so let’s hope this is the start of a big push. The Astros are coming off a series loss to Kansas City, so they look a bit less like the West’s juggernaut team than they did a few days ago. Go M’s.
1: Segura, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Valencia, 1B
7: Martin, CF
8: Zunino, C
9: Dyson, LF
SP: Paxton
Duty requires me to point out that no team in baseball’s done more damage to their playoff odds than the M’s. Is it silly to look at this in early April? Maybe. Are the odds still nearly entirely dependent on preseason projections? Nearly, yes. But in Baseball Prospectus’ odds, the M’s odds of getting to the playoffs have dropped by about 15%. That’s by far the largest drop, and it dwarfs the largest increase in odds – the Diamondbacks, at just under 12%. Fangraphs shows much less movement in part because they weren’t as high on the M’s to begin with. BP had their initial odds much higher, hence there was more room to drop.
Tacoma lost to Sacramento 5-1 as Tyler Beede outdueled Dylan Unsworth. Unsworth gave up 2 runs in 5 2/3 IP, with 2 Ks and, as you’d expect, no walks. The game was 2-1 very late, but rehabbing Tony Zych gave up 3 runs in the 8th on a Kyle Blanks 3R HR. Zych’s return to Seattle – which could come quite soon – likely means a reliever gets optioned or DFAd. Chase de Jong starts to Tacoma today in Game 1 of a twin bill, opposite ex-Toronto Blue Jays ace Ricky Romero, who’s trying to make it back in the Giants’ org. Game 2 will feature Ryan Weber for the Rainiers against Joan Gregorio, who’s racked up plenty of strikeouts in AA and AAA, but whose fly-balling approach has led to HRs and runs-allowed in the HR-crazed PCL.
Arkansas beat San Antonio 8-2 thanks to two great pitching performances from Kyle Hunter and Brett Ash. Hunter gave up a 2R shot in the first, but kept the Mission off the board after that in his 4 IP of work. Then pitch-to-contact righty Ash took over and blanked the Missions over the final 5 for the win. Jay Baum and Tyler Marlette both had 2 hits including a double, and the pair are a combined 15 for 31 on the year. Ex-Dodger farmhand Lindsey Caughel makes his M’s-system debut today. The righty pitched well in the Dodgers system before a labrum injury (fraying, not a tear) nuked half of his 2015 season. He returned in 2016 and pitched in spring training with the Dodgers, only to be released. He signed on with an Indy league team, pitched well, and was signed by the Mariners this winter. This post makes it seem like the M’s see him as more than MiLB roster depth, which is what you’d expect for an Indy league vet with shoulder problems on his resume. Good luck to Mr. Caughel, and I hope he dominates AA.
Modesto beat Lake Elsinore 6-2, with Reggie McClain looking sharp in his Cal League debut. The righty out of Missouri tossed 6 2/3 IP, giving up 1 run on 5 hits and 2 walks (he gave up only 5 all year last year) with 6 Ks. Art Warren got the save, going the final 2 1/3 without giving up a run (or getting a strikeout, actually). He worked out of the rotation last year, so not sure if this was a piggy-back start thing (like the Arkansas game) or if they’re moving Warren to the ‘pen. Today, Nathan Bannister makes his M’s system debut. Bannister pitched at the University of Arizona, putting up gaudy numbers in his senior year but falling to the 28th round thanks to a lack of velocity that only got to the high-80s late in his college career. Then, he was injured in a College World Series game, and wasn’t able to pitch at all last year; the M’s put him on the 60-day DL after the draft. It says something about how the M’s see him that he’ll skip rookie league/short season and the Midwest League entirely and join the High-A Nuts for his pro debut.
Clinton…alas, poor Clinton. They lost again 4-2, as Kane County completed a four-game sweep. Tim Viehoff yielded just a single hit in 5 shutout innings, but the Cougars tied the game at 2 off of RP Ronald Dominguez. It went into the 11th, when the Cougars scored a pair off of Michael Koval. SS Rayder Ascanio was 4-4 with a BB in a losing effort. Nick Wells leads the L-Kings to face Beloit and their alliteratively-named starter Boomer Biegalski, who sounds like a bully in a 1950s kids book.
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24 Responses to “Game 8, HOME OPENER: Astros at Mariners”
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In regard to Zych: Good, bring him up and send two relievers out. You don’t need an 8-man pen … mostly because Servais will probably just continue to over manage the shit out of it. It might even be better to provide Servais with only 6 relievers so then he can over manage the shit out of the bench players, instead.
The team doesn’t have 7 good relief pitchers available to them now, so they decided to counter the issue by going ahead and starting the season with 8. And rep-alphabet-zinski is a LOOGY. So, he’s basically a one-half reliever with a 2 year contract, so I guess that makes him a full reliever.
I like Servais, I really do but they need to get someone in there with him who knows how to manage a bullpen. You could see Fien was struggling and he left him in, then Diaz came in and channeled his inner Fernando Rodney and kept him in there too. Maybe I missed something because I didn’t watch the 9th.
Can we just win tonight! c’mon guys.
Batting order may not mean that much, but Martin batting 7th doesn’t instill much comfortability.
I’m less worried about the pen, as Cishek, Simmons, and Zych should be available relatively soon. But I wonder if they need to bench Martin for a while and give Gamel a shot.
Segura’s out of the game. Great.
That Haniger at bat basically sums up how this season is going so far…
Segura is out? And I just heard that Cano is limping (according to the radio).
Crap! Crap on a Westy crap-cracker!!
Valencia is bad…. Is it just me or does anyone else not expect a run to score with bases loaded and no outs…
Bases loaded, no outs, no runs. Of course.
Valencia, Martin and Zunino … boy, that amazing 3 will surely strike fear into the heart of any opponent. I know it certainly makes me fearful.
Segura left the game due to a right hamstring strain. Season keeps getting better and better.
Ugh….cmon, can anything go right!? anything! at all?!
Yay! RISP RISP! Miracles can happen….
Is Vogelbach the only other 1st base option we really have? I don’t know how much more Valencia I can stomach unless he figures something out.
It’s cute that Reddicks “best” option was to try to throw out Dyson at 3B instead of Zunino at home. Good luck, pal.
Fantastic job by Paxton. Great game!
Here we go. Please don’t.
We were dead last in mlb in ba/slg/obp coming into the game so its nice to see some life out of the lineup.
We figured they would bounce back…. now we have to hope for some luck in the health department. The last thing we need is to lose the few players that were hitting. 🙂
This strike zone… wow.
I’m listening to the game on the radio now, does Rizzs realize Bloomquist played for Piniella for a few weeks, not seasons? I guess not.
Good win today boys, clean up some stuff a bit and hopefully we will be fine. Saw some good contact by some guys, but Valencia has got to stop swinging at garbage pitches so far out of the zone. Lets do it again tomorrow!
Mariners win the Home Opener ! Nice to see Cruz hit well, and Paxton pitch like as Ace. Leapers, move back from the ledge…if the M’s win five or more of the next eight at home, the bandwagon will fill up again.
At this point, two in a row would be nice.
Exactly, baby steps. Last night’s win was a good one and a good step in the right direction. Hell of a game by Paxton, dude is starting the season on fire.