Game 8, Astros at Mariners: 2022 Home Opener
Marco Gonzales vs. Jake Odorizzi, 6:42pm
Happy Jackie Robinson day to all.
The M’s kick off their home schedule with a series against the presumptive divisional favorites again, the Houston Astros. The M’s have faced a number of playoff teams or playoff hopefuls, and it’s not getting easier tonight. The Astros come in 4-2, but the way they’ve done it looks a bit different. In their run of success, they’ve often had a dominant offense scoring tons of runs, but in 2020 and 2021, they’ve had to rely on less tested arms in the rotation; this is what happens when you lose Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander to FA and injury, respectively. The problem for M’s fans is that they’ve done so successfully. No, they’re not a dominant rotation/staff the way they were in 2019, but…if they could just fall off for a bit instead of riding Luis Garcia and Framber Valdez into top-10 pitching WAR, that’d really help.
The M’s get something of a break to start off, as they face veteran back-of-the-rotation guy Jake Odorizzi. Odorizzi learned a split-change in Tampa, and it became his primary weapon, playing off high fastballs at around 92. He also had a slider, cutter, and curve. Outside of a bizarre year in Minnesota, he’s never really been a strikeout guy, instead more of a pitch to elevated contact type who used to post ~30% ground ball rates and above-average infield pop-up rates to drive consistently low BABIPs. It’s left him with a career ERA under 4, but he’s been trending in the wrong direction, with a couple of years of below-average to average production. A part of this is just the downside risk an approach like this necessarily comes with: home runs. When he gets pop-ups and keeps the ball in the yard, he’s solid. When he can’t, or when the ball’s a little extra juicy, he struggles (though he didn’t in 2019, to his credit).
There’s nothing special about his under-powered fastball, movement wise. Cameron Grove’s stuff grades, a machine learning model based on pitch characteristics, gives Odorizzi’s fastball a scouting grade of 25 just based on his stuff this year, but excellent marks for command. That’s somewhat similar to how tonight’s starter, Marco Gonzales looks – his sinker’s “Stuff” grade is below average at 40, but he makes up for it in command. Intriguingly, that model *loves* his cutter, and thinks he should throw it a lot more. It likes his cambio too, though less, and I’ve essentially given up on that pitch after being intrigued by it after Gonzales’ acquisition. He threw it a lot in his first start, and the White Sox…enjoyed it. The cutter was the only pitch that the Sox didn’t homer off of in that start, but today’s a new day.
Once again, I think how this offense plays in this park is the thing to watch. Playing at T-Mobile did an absolute number on the bats last year, and thus there is no better place to see the influence of timing and sequencing than the M’s at home. Last year, they hit .214/.296/.367 in Seattle, yet went 46-35. This isn’t exactly dead-ball era baseball: the only thing not awful in that slash line is their ISO. What they couldn’t do was stop making outs; they absolutely could not get any base hits. A .261 BABIP was largely to blame, and that’s after serious improvement in the last month or two.
But that was last year. Let’s look forward. The new-look M’s and their better true-talent average hitters are…hitting .192/.292/.338, thanks to a .224 BABIP. It’s been a week. They played good teams. They lost hits due to weird stadium walls, wind, and good positioning. It won’t look like this all year. Still: a team that had massive BABIP problems last year is…having BABIP problems, and hasn’t even played yet at the place where the BABIP problems were worst. I don’t necessarily expect we’ll see such striking home/road splits, again because the use of humidors everywhere should reduce some of the park-to-park differences, but…this is something to keep an eye on.
The M’s getting that series-ending win was huge, not only because they did not want to stroll into the home opener 2-5, but because it highlighted just how good Logan Gilbert’s becoming. That was a phenomenal game in very tough conditions, and that’s two in a row for him; the inconsistency he battled last year hasn’t reared its head in, ok fine… ten innings. The bullpen that had looked a bit shaky in Minnesota and game 1 in Chicago looked dominant, with Andres Munoz looking like the star Jerry Dipoto’s talked about since he was acquired, and with Paul Sewald picking up where he left off.
The Astros new-look offense is off to a slow start, as they’ve been dealing with BABIP problems of their own. Kyle Tucker is doing his best Jesse Winker impression, with a K rate under 10% and a putrid batting average thanks to a BABIP of .053, which just looks like a typo. But a bright spot has been rookie SS Jeremy Pena, the heir apparent to Carlos Correa who had a breakout year in the minors last season, but made his MLB debut on opening day this year. With more rookies making their clubs out of spring, there are a few more players to look at even this early in the season. Rookies have a 96 wRC+ thus far, with a higher strikeout rate than non-rookies. That’s a better mark than they had in the full 2019 and 2021 season, though of course, the 96 mark is based off of a league overall wRC+ that will come down over the course of the year. It will be interesting to see how this larger class of new-CBA rookies fares. Pena and Steven Kwan are off to hot starts, while the most talked-about rookies – Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Witt, Jr. – are scuffling in the early going.
1: Frazier, 2B
2: France, 1B
3: Winker, LF
4: Haniger, RF
5: Crawford, SS
6: Suarez, 3B
7: Kelenic, DH
8: Rodriguez, CF
9: Murphy, C
SP: Gonzales
It was great to see the rookies contribute yesterday, from Kelenic’s HR to Julio’s second (Easy) stolen base to Cal Raleigh’s bomb. Seriously hope they can keep it up in the home series.
Modesto lost to Stockton 11-6. Harry Ford got a hit, but is just 2-19 on the young season, albeit with five walks.
Everett blanked Hillsboro 5-0 behind a great start from Isaiah Campbell, who gave up just one hit and K’d 6 in 5 innings. Due to injuries, he’s yet to top 30 innings in his pro career, but is plenty talented.
Arkansas sneaked past Springfield 3-2 as Levi Stoudt outdueled Dalton Roach. Er, the losing pitcher was reliever and ex-M’s prospect Tyler Pike, a 2012 draft pick by Seattle out of a Florida HS. Stephen Kolek starts today against Springfield’s Kyle Leahy.
Tacoma came back, but couldn’t overcome some shaky early innings in an 11-8 loss in Albuquerque. Daniel Ponce de Leon, eye opening in his home debut last weekend, went 1 1/3, giving up 7 earned. But Mike Ford went 4-5 with a dinger, and Kevin Padlo hit two to make things interesting. Ford even pitched 1/3 of an inning, his second pitching appearance on the young season (?). Weird, but hey, interesting. Ford got the R’s out of a jam in the bottom of the 8th, facing one batter and retiring him on a fly out. Tacoma’s pulled up Juan Mercedes from Modesto to make the spot start today
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4 Responses to “Game 8, Astros at Mariners: 2022 Home Opener”
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Kelenic’s not a rookie, but he still had a great game. I have very high hopes for him this year. Great write up. Thank you.
Well, this game is helping the team’s stats 🙂 Nice way to open at home, and against the ‘stros!
That’ll up the Fun Differential!
Great weekend home opening series!!
There is a lot to be excited about, and strides have not even begun for the youngster hopefuls!