Game 126 – Mariners at Indians
Vargas vs. Carmona, 4:05pm
After another painful loss to complete a painful sweep, the M’s head to Cleveland to face a reeling Indians team. The Tribe were just swept by Detroit and are now 4.5 games back in the AL Central. When they traded for Ubaldo Jimenez, they were a game over .500 in a mediocre division (no team had a positive run differential at the deadline) and only 2.5 games back. They’ve since gone 9-9 and fallen further behind as Jimenez has yielded 21 runs in 21 innings with Cleveland.
Fausto Carmona’s K:BB ratio has improved this year, but he’s still nowhere near the pitcher he was in 2007. The problem this year has been home runs, as he’s already given up more this year than he did in over 210 innings last year. HIs ground ball rate is very good, he’s limited the free passes after losing all sense of the strike zone in 2009, and he doesn’t have bad platoon splits. And yet he’s got an RA of over 5.5 and an rWAR of -0.9 (his fWAR is 0.7). Carmona’s essentially a walking embodiment of pitcher inconsistency: since 2007, he’s had one great season (6.6 rWAR), one average one (2.0 rWAR), and three below-replacement seasons.
Jason Vargas has followed up a frustrating July, when he had a Carmona-esque HR problem despite a good K:BB with an unambiguously terrible August. His fastball velocity is down a bit in August compared to where it was from April through June, but not enough to worry about. His big problem has been his change-up. From April-June, he got whiffs on over 15% of them, but in August, that’s down to 6%. It appears that it’s moving differently too – whereas his change used to sink by more than 4 inches compared to his 2-seam FB or 5 inches compared to his 4-seamer, the gap is down to 1 inch compared to his 2 seamer and a bit less than 2 inches compared to his 4 seamer. The gap in velocity’s down as well. All told, it’s gone from a plus pitch to a questionable one, though it may still be the best pitch in his arsenal.
Today’s Line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Gutierrez
3: Ackley
4: Carp
5: Wells
6: Kennedy
7: Olivo
8: Ryan (woooo)
9: Robinson
The Rainiers look to avoid a sweep in Reno tonight with Anthony Vasquez on the hill. Losing the first three have pretty much ended any hope of a Rainiers playoff run, but this will still be an interesting few weeks for Vasquez and Erasmo Ramirez.
Instead of using Vasquez to bolster the Rainiers increasingly quixotic playoff push, the M’s have called him up and he’ll pitch tomorrow night. No word on the corresponding roster move yet.
Other starters tonight include Tony Butler for Clinton, Kenn Kasparek for Jackson and Cameron Hobson for Everett.
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31 Responses to “Game 126 – Mariners at Indians”
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Is there any reasonable justification for starting Adam Kennedy at this stage of a lost season? Not only does he not factor into the team’s future whatsoever, he sucks. Not to mention, Seager’s shown a little something with the bat over his last few games.
NO! This is driving me nuts.
Seriously! Unless this is his final chance before getting DFA’d.
marc, didn’t Vargas change his delivery slightly within his past 3 or 4 starts? I can’t remember precisely when it was, but I remember watching his first pitch of the game and thinking, ‘He’s not striding as far forward’, and then having it confirmed by the announcers moments later. Something about him experimenting with a shorter quicker delivery or something like that.
Could be, mattlock. I’ll look into it. Don’t know why it would affect the pfx Z of his pitches, or of his change in particular, but it could explain the overall velocity drop.
Looking at his change-up start by start, it wasn’t sinking much at all in his first two starts of the month (against ANA and TEX), especially on the 10th in Arlington. But in his last start, it was much closer to his April-June average. Not that it did any good.
His last two starts in July look crazy – it looks like there’s something wrong with the pfx Z data. I’ll keep checking on this. The small samples mean that a start in a park where the pfx data’s wonky can really mess up these monthly averages.
You know…regarding the third base problem? This season is lost, has been for awhile and we have no business trotting out any Adam Kennedy types in games.
Why not just get Alex Liddi in here? Don’t even wait until the rosters expand. The Rainiers aren’t making any playoffs, either. I think Liddi has at least earned a chance to prove that we’ve all overlooked him.
Sometimes the right answer is so close to your face, you dismiss it. I know Liddi’s faults as a ballplayer, but to me it makes no more sense for him to take AAA at-bats than it does to play Adam Kennedy.
No Vasquez on the hill for the Rainiers, he’s coming to the big leagues.
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Is Liddi on the plane with him?
Thanks, Jay. You’re awesome as ever. Do you think Liddi should be getting major-league ABs in an audition?
If we use the “keep Cust while not playing Carp” as a barometer for all decisions “Mariner” related, I doubt anything will happen as quickly as some of us would like to see them.
Yes, Kennedy – outskie … please.
I’m not JY, but I do think Liddi should get MLB at bats, SoZ. I mean, that’s not a crazy or bold statement – he’s on the 40 man, and on Sept. 1, he’ll be up here and hopefully he’ll get some ABs.
Like Dave, I don’t think he’s a major league hitter at this point in time, but given the dearth of 3B options, you help the team and the player by letting him see what MLB pitching is like. Liddi’s come a very, very long way in a short time since he basically crashed out of the midwest league. He’s improved his defense too – he’s very coachable, but it takes a while, as it took Carp a long time to go from AAAA guy to legitimate MLB hitter. Figgins and Kennedy really shouldn’t get any starts in September, so have Liddi start and move Seager around the IF but keep him in the line-up.
If he strikes out in 40% of his PAs, oh well. It’s an investment.
I just love “Fausto Carmona” as a name. I always say it with a long, exaggerated roll of the “r”. It’s exactly the name you give the arch-villain in the most insanely over-the-top telenovela ever made. “No one ever expects…” (voice drops to a whisper) “…Fausto Carrrrrrmona!”
And I’m sure his glove is made of the finest Corinthian leather.
I thought Smoak was day-to-day with the broken nose. We haven’t seen him in a week. Did he go on the DL and I missed it?
From what I read, it wasn’t just a broken nose, it was also some fracturing of the bone around the eye. Nasty business, so it’s taking a while.
Kennedy forced that error. Good job, old man.
So Vasquez is coming up to help keep Pineda’s innings down?
I think he’s coming up because the M’s need two starters tomorrow for the doubleheader and don’t want to move everybody up a day.
Pretty sure he went on the 15 day DL on the 13th.
Nice job by Carp there on the DP. He’s been solid in the field as well as at the dish. Very impressed by his overall game right now
The way Cabrera ran the bases there, you’d almost think he was still in our organization.
I’ll take it. We could use the good break. But I bet Cabrera gets fined a Benjamin for that li’l mistake in the kangaroo court.
Hope this goes to extras and Carp gets another AB
After Cabrera poped out he threw his bat right at Olivo… And then it appeared like he was barking at Olivo on his way back to the dugout. Interesting…
And now Olivo just got plunked.
Perez is out of control
Good grief.
Haha, Perez is our best player
Wow have to respect olivo for sliding, he could have absolutely buried their catcher.
I was thinking the same thing. That guy was standing on top of the plate and didn’t protect himself at all. Olivo could have put him in a hospital on a totally legal play.
Aye, tough hop but Ryan has got to make that play. We are giving away games with bad defense lately.
Good win, though. We’ve been losing an inordinate amount of these type of ballgames lately.
Ichiro with 141 hits now. It’ll take a pretty superlative September…but maybe just maybe he gets to 200 for the year.
By my reckoning, he’d have to hit about .375 for the remainder of the season. Not out of the realm of possibility for him, but quite unlikely.
Possible, for sure. But he also isn’t going to be having meatballs thrown by washed-up RHP for the last four weeks like he did tonight, sadly.
I’m starting to get concerned about the M’s getting hit in the hands and face in the last few days.
While I’m not saying that we need to go out there and throw it at their heads, it seems like a plunking tomorrow is more than called for.