Game 56, Rangers at Mariners
Wade LeBlanc vs. Mike Minor, 7:10pm
The M’s look to salvage a series split with Texas tonight behind Wade LeBlanc, the guy who’s tossed 26+ IP as a starter with an ERA well below 2, and with a K:BB ratio nearing 5. LeBlanc still doesn’t look overpowering or even powering at all, but his superb control and…uh…the other things he must be doing contribute to a remarkably solid starter. No, he’s not going to keep up THIS level of performance, but he’s been a critical part of the M’s success in May, when injuries and ineffectiveness in the rotation plus a bit of an offensive slump could’ve easily spoiled the M’s season.
Mike Minor was the high-floor 1st round pick of the Braves back in 2009, and he reached the majors in 2010 – exactly what you want from a college-trained polish-over-raw-stuff type pick. He had 2.5 solid years in the Atlanta rotation before injuries and inconsistency led the Braves to look elsewhere for back-of-the-rotation depth. Their big rebuild probably played a part, too. In any event, after rehabbing from TJ surgery, he joined a number of formerly-hurt starters in Kansas City in 2016. He made it up to the big club in 2017 as a reliever, and enjoyed a brilliant season, racking up 2.1 fWAR and 2.5 RA9 WAR thanks to improved velocity (he sat at 90 as a starter, but was nearly 95 last year out of the pen) and a sharp slider.
The Rangers saw an opportunity to get an underpriced starter by picking up Minor and converting him back to the rotation. It’s a good plan – Carlos Carrasco is perhaps the best known starter-to-reliever-to-much-better-starter conversions, so there’s a precedent here – and to Minor/Texas’ credit, a decent chunk of that increased velocity has held over to his new role. He’s produced an exemplary K:BB ratio thanks to the best walk rate of his career. It’s just that none of the other results have been good or even so-so.
His slider’s no longer missing bats, and his change-up’s only ok. His change-of-pace curveball has been great in small doses, but the big problem is his fastball, which batters are slugging .652 on coming into tonight’s game. Part of this seems to be a change in his fastball approach; he’s gone from using it away from lefties and in on righties to using it up and away to both in 2018. His fly ball rate isn’t materially different than it was back in 2012 or 2013, but of course the ball and thus the entire GAME has changed since then. As a fly-baller in a hitter’s park, he’s paid the price in dingers – something he didn’t have to worry about as much as a fly-baller in 2012-13 Turner Field.
Safeco’s playing much more neutral to pitcher-friendly this year, much to my confusion. After a year and a half of yelling at anyone who would listen (and thank you all for listening) that the park was much more HR-friendly than previously believed, and even than some statcast park factors would tell you, the park’s listing back the other way. Like most parks in 2018, expected wOBA has been higher than actual wOBA at Safeco. In fact, Safeco has the 7th largest gap between expected and actual production. Of course, Safeco has ALWAYS had a gap between expected and actual performance – that’s what the Marine Layer does. What’s changed is both the magnitude of the gap AND the frequency with which balls are barreled up. The M’s pitchers have something to do with that, though the same pattern appears if we just look at road pitchers. Safeco gave up a ton of barrels in 2016 (and 2015, judging by the insane number of HRs hit), less in 2017, and less still in 2018.
1: Gordon, 2B
2: Segura, SS
3: Haniger, RF
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Healy, 1B
7: Heredia, CF
8: Span, LF
9: Zunino, C
SP: LeBlanc
Welcome back, Dee Gordon. The speedster came off the DL for his fractured toe today; Gordon Beckham was optioned back to Tacoma.
Tacoma, Arkansas and Modesto all lost last night, but Clinton roughed up 18 year old Jairo Solis for 5 runs in 1/3 of an inning to avoid the org sweep. Colin Rodgers, Ryne Inman and Max Povse are among tonight’s starters.
Comments
2 Responses to “Game 56, Rangers at Mariners”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Seriously, this isn’t a bad looking lineup considering there’s no Cano.
Was great to see Rzepcyznski knocked around again last night.
I mean, it wasn’t.
Dee wasting no time showing off his speed. First the triple, then somehow beating the throw home off Segura’s sacrifice.