Game 33, Cubs at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Jon Lester, 3:40pm
It’s a day game today, pitting Gonzaga product Marco Gonzales against Bellarmine HS product Jon Lester. As always, the most conflicted man watching this game must be M’s head groundskeeper Bob Christofferson, who coached Lester as a youngster.
I continue to marvel at Marco Gonzales’ transformation this year. His velocity is still down – noticeably- from 2018, which was down from 2017. Instead of confusing batters with 4 pitches each thrown 25% of the time, Marco’s more selective, with three pitches in his tier 1 arsenal, and then 2 more a tier 2 “every once in a while” group. What’s interesting is what’s dropped away: it’s his curve, which, to me, was his best weapon last year. And while he used this pitch mix to keep batters off balance in the first half of April, he’s since gone on a bit of a strikeout binge, and odd sight for a pitcher throwing 88 in 2019.
At the heart of this is the change Marco made last year, when he finally started to separate his fastball into two separate pitches. His fastball had given him HR problems in 2017, and even in spot duty last year, his new, rising four-seamer still produced 3 HRs. He gave up only 1 on his sinker (really the remnant of his old “fastball”) in nearly twice the pitches, though. How? You can’t homer if you don’t swing, and batters, for whatever reason, are really reluctant to swing at Marco’s sinker. I’d love to understand this more, because batters cannot swing enough at his change and cutter. With 2 strikes, you’d expect batters to swing, and against his change and cutter this year, opposing batters’ swing rate is around 70%. For his sinker, though, it’s *still* below 40%. To sum up: Marco Gonzales throws more strikes than anyone, and when batters have two strikes against them and Gonzales throws an 88 mph sinker, they eye it like an intensely picky eater inspects an unfamiliar food. This is fascinating.
Lester is such a great match-up today, because they’re similar in a lot of ways, but have such a different approach. In his younger days, Lester would touch 95, but is now 90-91, or where Marco was last year. He throws the exact same 5 pitches, but in a different mix and with a very different strategy. Lester pitches off of his four-seam and cutter, with the other three (curve, change, sinker) clearly a step below in terms of usage. To righties especially, he throws a four-seam or cutter over 70% of the time. The point here isn’t that these are necessarily his best pitches, but he seems to want each change or curve to really “count” and be as unfamiliar to the batter as possible (probably good for a guy who’s pitched as long as Lester has). He’s had decent enough results with his Big 2 pitches, but what his usage pattern has done is to make the change/curve more effective. Since the start of 2018, batters are slugging under .300 on those pitches.
Still, it’s an open question whether this is all results-based thinking. He had the same approach in 2017, and had (by his standards) a poor year because a few more of those curves went over the fence. This year, it’s still too early to say much, but he’s running a 95% strand rate. Neither pitcher is untouchable, but both are amazing competitors and get the most out of their raw stuff.
1: Haniger, RF
2: Santana, LF
3: Encarnacion, 1B
4: Beckham, SS
5: Voglebach, DH
6: Healy, 3B
7: Murphy, C
8: Bishop, CF
9: Gordon, 2B
SP: Marcooooo
Damon Casetta-Stubbs is now up to 12 1/3 IP on the season and has yet to give up a run. The Vancouver product got the win in West Virginia’s shut-out in Lakewood last night. Jarred Kelenic homered, so it was a good day all around.
The Rainiers blanked Forrest Snow’s Salt Lake City Bees by an identical score of 2-0 in a shortened game. Tommy Milone got the win, and Kris Negron supplied the power with a HR.
Ljay Newsome, who really has to be the story of the early going in the M’s system, tossed 7 brilliant innings at Lancaster, going 7 IP with 1 R on 6H and no BB and 8 Ks. Sadly, the bats couldn’t do too much against the JetHawks Antonio Santos, and so the game went to extras tied 1-1. Because the minor league rules are the minor league rules, the game ended 8-3 in the 13th. Both teams failed to score in the 10th, but then BOTH scored a single run in both the 11th and 12th. And then the JetHawks, who just couldn’t read the bloody room, scored 5 in the 13th. Gauche.
Arkansas lost to Frisco earlier today, but Justus Sheffield takes the hill for Tacoma in Salt Lake, so tune in to that one after the M’s game (Gametime is 5:35 for that PCL contest, by the way).
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