Game 56, Mariners at Rangers
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Derek Holland, 12:05
The M’s could really use a win here, having dropped the first two of the series and thus two games back of the first place Rangers. The M’s are still the division favorite according to Fangraphs, but it’s narrowing. The projected final standings show the M’s a game up on Texas, at 86-76, and thus the M’s have a lead in playoff odds. But as you can see from this chart, their lead has narrowed considerably in the past few days.
Today the M’s face Derek Holland, the veteran lefty who’ll be making his 11th start of the year, or one more than he made in his injury-plagued 2015. He’s always had sizable platoon splits, kind of like Martin Perez, thanks to a so-so change-up and better breaking stuff. It’s not only a pitch mix problem, either: his fastballs have been crushed by righties, while his sinker in particular has remained very effective against lefties. At this point in his career – and in his recovery from injury – Holland’s not missing many bats, so he’s trying to get by getting lazy fly balls and infield pop-ups. He’s been successful in inducing pop ups, and thus his FIP looks okay, but he’s had a tough time stranding runners, and his BABIP isn’t as low as you might assume given his batted ball profile.
Of course, nothing that Holland does matters if the M’s keep getting disastrous starts from their starters. Hisashi Iwakuma was decent in his last appearance, or at least as decent as a starter can be while giving up 4 dingers. In context, it was probably better than the line looks: the M’s scored a million runs, and Iwakuma needed to just throw strikes. But Arlington isn’t a place to just throw strikes and hope for the best, so he’ll need to be a bit sharper than he’s been in recent starts.
Iwakuma’s slider has never quite rounded into form, so this year he’s throwing more of the cutter he developed in 2014 and showed very occasionally last year. It’s thrown at 85-86, so very near his four-seam fastball’s speed, but has none of the armside run. Unfortunately, it too seems to be a work in progress, as batters have hit it fairly hard. We’ll see if it’s something he continues to go to, or if he’ll go back to his curve…or just stick to the splitter.
1: Aoki, CF
2: Gutierrez, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Lee, 1B
6: Seager, 3B
7: Iannetta, C
8: Romero, LF
9: Sardinas, SS
SP: Iwakuma
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26 Responses to “Game 56, Mariners at Rangers”
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Get well soon, Martin and Marte. SERIOUSLY.
Martin’s (126 wRC+) and Marte (88 wRC+) have basically been replaced by Stefen Romero’s (32 wRC+), Luis Sardinas (48 wRC+) and Shawn O’Malley (-13 wRC+). Unfortunately those replacements are also worse defensively… not to mention Aoki being truly horrid in center field.
None of this is surprising – given the state of the team when Dipoto came on board, if anything is surprising it’s how good of a starting nine he was able to put together. But the roster’s shallowness is showing.
On top of that, it was truly bad timing for the pitching to go arse up, as the Brits say (or at least I think they say). In old school parlance – the Mariners could’ve really benefited from the pitchers’ “stepping up”. Unfortunately they stepped out.
Iwakuma has held the Rangers scoreless through three… so he’s holding up HIS side of the bargain.
Score some runs, dammit!
strike out fest today i guess… everyone brought holy bats.
Yeah Westside, this lineup looks a lot more like last year’s when you have Romero and Sardinas batting 8th and 9th. The offense really has not been the problem though.
At least Iwakuma is holding his own today.
YEAH!! There’s some runs…
Thank you BOOM STICK!
Nice snag by that fan, as well – catching Cruz’s homer with an outstretched cap!
I really don’t care for Romero at the ML level, Thanks for helping out in AAA. I hope Martin comes back with out losing to much of his hot streak.
Well it was fun while it lasted…..
Absolute bonehead play by Romero.
And then an error.
What a talent.
Sardinas and Romero going to cost us this game…. hopefully they understand they are just cannon fodder at this point because this is crap.
Defense may have just cost the game. Luckily, Marte and Martin should be back soon.
a week ago were sitting a game up… now were 3 down… and falling.
Holland is not this good….
Wow I am really upset about this game…. this should be our game! Iwakuma has all but dominated the Rangers only for Sardinas/Romero to look like fools and lose this for us.
^Gotta see more offense. Iwakuma was good, but you can’t bank on ballgames with 2 runs scored. The errors sting, and I look forward to seeing both go away, but the bats need to come alive.
I agree with the more offense, but the team has to show that they can win these types of games. Rangers only have 3 runs on 5 hits, its a pitching match up that was decided by crap errors from AAA players.
Whelp. At least Marte is back tomorrow… but the outfield is a bigger problem right now.
Anything but a sweep would have been fine for this series.
Tied for the division… and now 1.5 out of the wild card. Brutal week.
What a difference a day makes…
With today’s victory, FanGraph’s projections now show the Rangers as the AL west favorites. Seattle is five percentage points behind. Houston is currently in third, but is rapidly closing the gap.
Both fangraphs and BP’s playoff odds are poorly calculated, with not nearly enough regression to the mean and thus overly extreme probability estimates. The notion that Texas should now be the AL West favorites though probably is an accurate reflection of the games of the last few days.
Temporary question:
Are we better with O Malley at short and Marte in CF, or Marte at SS and O’Malley in center… in the interim till Martin is back?
Remember, there are 2 wild card teams.
Temporary answer: sure
What is the statute of limitations for such a solid answer?
Westy: please help guide your geriatric brethren (me) through the process for finding Nelson Cruz’ stat line after 58 games last year.
Or, please just do it for me.
Thank you.