Game 26, Mariners at Astros
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Luis Garcia/Kent Emanuel, 11:10am
Last night’s loss was a tough one, in a sense. Any time the bullpen blows a lead late, and any time the M’s knock Zack Greinke out of the game and then *lose* is going to sting. This team isn’t good enough to overcome a lot of losses like that. But then, they’re not really trying to win anyway, so we’re free to pick through the wreckage of a single, mostly meaningless, April loss and find things to enjoy. Here’s mine: Justin Dunn is bizarrely good now.
I don’t mean it’s bizarre how dominant, how amazing he is. I watched deGrom last night, and Justin Dunn isn’t anywhere near that level. What I mean is that Justin Dunn has fixed the weird control gremlins that plagued his first season and his first game of this season, and he’s become a guy who can reliably keep the M’s in the game. And the way he does that – THAT’S what’s bizarre. Dunn has now tossed over 70 innings in the big leagues. That’s not a lot by any stretch, but it’s spread over three seasons and is not exactly nothing, either. His career BABIP is now .181. *.181!* That’s…that’s kind of insane.
Long-time readers here, and I’d put myself in this category, remember that one of things this blog talked a lot about oh…15 years ago or so, was that Jarrod Washburn was being overvalued by the M’s due to a low BABIP. Sure, he had a low BABIP a few years with the Angels, but that’s not something the pitcher controls – he’ll come to Seattle and regress, and the team won’t know why. Well, he kept it low his first two years here, and then when it crept up towards .300, he was done – not only in Seattle, but in MLB. The point is, this place had kind of an editorial line on BABIP. Justin Dunn would be seen as the luckiest bad pitcher in the game.
But I’m not here to bury Dunn, I’m here to bury the old editorial line. I don’t think this is sustainable, exactly, as Justin Dunn’s BABIP is *the lowest in MLB history* for anyone with at least 50 innings. There are only 4 players with a BABIP below .215 over that many innings. Two were forgettable relievers, and the other is the Astros’ Cristian Javier, whom the M’s just saw a few days ago. But even Javier’s above .200. We’re in uncharted territory here. So yes, it won’t stay *this* low, but would you take a Cristian Javier-type outcome for Dunn, particularly after his first start this year?
Part of my renewed optimism is that we’ve learned a heck of a lot since Washburn came north about BABIP and the control that pitchers have over it. Pace DIPS theory of 20 years ago, pitchers definitely can influence it, as studies from Mike Fast and others have found. Now, to be clear, the way Dunn is going about it is a bit different. He’s not reliably avoiding hard contact. He’s pretty middle-of-the-road there. But it seems like his fastball is just *odd* enough that batters are split between topping it and getting underneath the ball. Not enough to create a bunch of infield flies, but enough to produce solid fly balls to the outfield – but not more than that. Can he keep it up? I mean, stranger things have happened, I guess, and a recurrence of the control problems would make his BABIP less valuable (because batters could get on base another, easier, way). But a version of Dunn with a BABIP consistently in the .250 range (in other words, dramatically worse than he’s done thus far) would have real value for a middle/bottom of the rotation guy.
Today, the M’s face another Astros prospect starter, this time Luis Garcia. Garcia made the jump from high-A to the big leagues last year, as the Astros had a wave of pitcher injuries and departures, and he pitched pretty well. He overcome some wildness – wildness that he’d shown in the minors – and didn’t really miss a ton of bats, but he rode a…freakishly low BABIP to low runs-allowed totals. So far, so Cristian Javier. And really, the similarities don’t end there. Garcia throws a four-seam fastball at 93 from a below-6-foot release point, generating 9″ or so of “rise.” He throws a good, hard, change with lots of armside run (unlike the fastball, which is straight) and which dips below the fastball’s plane. Then, to complement that, a breaking ball with lots of GLOVEside run and sink. Garcia has a cutter as well that stays straight, but dives down compared to the fastball, so he’s got the full range of armside, gloveside, and no movement pitches. This is pretty much exactly what we talked about with Javier the other day, and at least a bit, with Dunn. The fastball has sneaky rise for a pitch that’s not thrown over the top or even really 3/4, and then the breaking stuff sweeping across the zone might heighten the confusion. It’s the same basic repertoire that we saw from Jose Urquidy, too, though Urquidy’s release point is slightly higher. The Astros have a “type.” Whether that’s a type to target in international free agency, or a type to mold through player development, I don’t know.
Reminds me of something I talked about years ago: the Yankees type. It’s essentially the same formula, with the same shape fastball and then a change with lots of armside run and just a ton of breaking balls across the zone. Luis Severino rode it to Cy Young votes, and David Robertson used his cutter to essentially fit the pattern, but we’ve seen it from everyone from Domingo German to Nick Rumbelow.
Lefty Kent Emanuel is also listed as a probable. The rookie made his debut the other day and threw 8 2/3 innings in relief for his first MLB win. He gave up only 2 runs to the Angels, striking out 5. He throws a sinker, change, and slider, and unlike Garcia, Javier, and Urquidy, doesn’t get a ton of fly ball contact. He’s a ground ball guy, and that showed in his debut. Drafted in 2013, Emanuel has had a long, slow climb through the Astros system, finishing with parts of three years in the hitter-friendly PCL, including the scarred wasteland that was the PCL in 2019. After missing very few bats and getting hit hard, something seemed to click for him in 2019 – perhaps the only pitcher alive who had fond memories of pitching in the PCL in 2019. He throws about 91, and gets lots of horizontal movement on his stuff, so this is probably a decent pairing of probable pitchers – a hard, 94mph arrow-straight righty followed by the 91mph running sinkerballer lefty.
1: Haggerty, LF
2: Seager, 3B
3: France, 2B
4: Marmolejos, DH
5: White, 1B
6: Crawford, SS
7: Moore, RF
8: Trammell, CF
9: Murphy, C
SP: Kikuchi
Kyle Lewis is getting a scheduled off day, so nothing nefarious there. Mitch Haniger is again out of the line-up, though things don’t sound too serious. The news is less good on Marco Gonzales, who’s just been placed on the IL with forearm tightness, which is one of those innocuous sounding injuries that never fail to scare the crap out of me. Remember, that was the initial diagnosis for James Paxton. It may just be exactly what they say it is, but the overlap between “forearm tightness” and elbow problems simply can’t be ignored. The M’s have activated Domingo Tapia.
Yikes, so the rotation is basically Flexen, Kikuchi, Dunn, Sheffield and whatever we can sponge up in spots 5/6?
So, we get CHAOS BALL and Kikuchi is shutting them down…
Kikuchi was great, offense…
But, they got it. Should have split this series, but that’s the way it goes.
I’d imagine Dugger fills in for at least one start. Maybe we’ll see Gilbert after that?
Justin Dunn is a great pitcher waiting to happen. That’s just clear. But like Sheff he struggles, even with great stuff! So let’s wait and see. Don’t pigeon-hole them. Relax.
I still wouldn’t be surprised if Sheffield and Dunn move to the ‘pen for spot-starts and long-relief. LAD has been successful with that approach.
Evan White was placed on the bereavement list. Gota feel for him.