Game 22, Mariners at Red Sox
Nick Margevicius vs. Eduardo Rodriguez, 10:10am
After a comprehensive and impressive win, the M’s go for a huge road series win against a good team. It’s going to be tough; this isn’t an ideal match-up, but the M’s line-up has been better than advertised by the likes of…uh, me, and put up a decent number of runs. May that continue!
Chris Flexen put together a brilliant start yesterday, scattering four hits in 7 IP, giving up just one run, and striking out seven. He gets dinged by statcast and other sites for not racking up swings and misses at times, but you wouldn’t know it from watching Boston try to hit him. He picked up 16 swings-and-misses to go along with 10 called strikes, easily outpacing Nate Eovaldi, who touched 99 and has knockout stuff.
The key for Flexen has been his cutter at 90-91 – it’s the pitch he went to most often, and he generated most of the whiffs with it. It had the most balls in play off of it, but most of it was only moderately well-struck. And because hitters have to look for it, I think it helps his comparatively underpowered fastball play up. They’d let the fastball go, obviously looking for something else, or they’d foul it off. In all, the Sox only put two fastballs in play. If a pitcher can generate contact on pitches *other* than four-seamers, that’s a good thing: batters do the most damage on fastballs. Cutters, even very “fastball like” versions of the pitch, get improved results.
Nick Margevicius has been hit fairly hard, but his FIP’s better than his ERA due to a fairly impressive K:BB ratio for a lefty throwing in the high 80s. His fastball’s been his best pitch by far, which is kind of strange. I talked up his slider last time out, and he barely threw it, preferring to throw a barrage of slow, rainbow curves in the low 70s. That pitch certainly may make his fastball look tougher, but on its own, it hasn’t quite worked. Hitters are slugging .571 off of it, and if you look at the expected stats, Margevicius has gotten quite *lucky* off of the balls in play he’s allowed. To be fair, the results haven’t really been there on the few sliders he’s thrown, but I think it’s one dinger spoiling everything. It was a solid pitch last year, and I wish we’d see more of it. Not sure that we will today, given Boston’s strong right-handed hitters, but maybe he can work it in against Rafael Devers.
Eduardo Rodriguez was one of the most prominent players in any sport to not only contract Covid-19, but to have one of the many longer-term issues that can be associated with it. Specifically, Rodriguez suffered myocarditis, and inflammation of the heart which can often lead to scarring. That can seriously impact longer-term health, but the fact that he’s playing suggests it may not have gotten that far. Still, Rodriguez had a severe case, and I’m very glad he’s been able to come back. He’s long been a guy who’s been able to consistently generate weaker contact, and the key to that has been his excellent change-up. Batters have hit .232 off of it in Rodriguez’s career, with a .337 slugging percentage. In the early going this season, they’re hitting even worse, with a paltry .217 SLG%. He’s using it more often, as you would if you had a pitch that hitters found it nearly impossible to drive, throwing more of it than his four-seam fastball. That’s new; it’s always played off of the fastball as opposed to being the main course, so we’ll see if he tries to get back to a more “normal” pitch mix for a starter. He also throws a slider and cutter, with the latter becoming an increasingly important part of his repertoire. That’s been important, because he’s simply never really been able to figure out his slider. He’s like a lefty Erasmo Ramirez in that regard, I guess. But better: he’s been great in his first three starts this year, and was better than average in 2018 and 2019 as well. Not that it’s mattered if an opposing starter holds the M’s in check; they can just wait for some set-up guy to make mistakes and pounce.
1: Haniger, DH
2: France, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: White, 1B
6: Moore, RF
7: Haggerty, LF
8: Murphy, C
9: Crawford, SS
SP: Margevicius
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Well, I’ll still call the series a win. Taking 2 of 4 wasn’t nothing and Newsome stepped it up, so hopefully the lucky number 8 starter continues to impress.