A Ripe Time for Revenge Versus the Astros

Matthew Carruth · June 10, 2013 at 2:50 pm · Filed Under Mariners 
MARINERS (27-37) ΔMs ASTROS (22-42) EDGE
HITTING (wOBA*) -12.5 (18th) -5.9 -32.7 (26th) Mariners
FIELDING (RBBIP) -7.2 (21st) -1.3 -32.3 (29th) Mariners
ROTATION (xRA) 12.7 (8th) -0.7 -35.0 (30th) Mariners
BULLPEN (xRA) 5.6 (7th) 2.1 -20.4 (30th) Mariners
OVERALL (RAA) -1.3 (16th) -5.7 -120.3 (30th) MARINERS

It’s nearly unanimous across the board! The Astros are the worst team in baseball. Yeah, the Marlins are worse, much worse, at hitting, but the Astros have baseball’s worst pitching staff and it’s bad enough to edge out Miami for worst team overall, so far. The Astros cannot do anything well, except when they play the Mariners (4-2, +11 run differential) or the Angels (7-3, +10 run differential). One of those is pretty funny. I guess both are, depending on your sense of humor or perspective. It’s probably downright hilarious to Oakland fans, who’ve seen the A’s go 9-0 versus the Astros, but then, the A’s are 3-4 against the Mariners so far so by transitive properties…

Batter PA P/PA Slash line nBB K (sw) 1B/2B/3B/HR Sw- Ct+ Qual+
K Seager* 61 3.7 .352/.443/.519 7 9 (6) 14 / 3 / 0 / 2 98 104 139
K Morales^ 58 3.6 .293/.293/.448 0 10 (9) 12 / 3 / 0 / 2 112 100 59
J Bay 57 3.9 .189/.263/.434 4 18 (11) 5 / 1 / 0 / 4 97 94 167
R Ibanez* 54 3.9 .180/.259/.340 4 15 (14) 5 / 2 / 0 / 2 100 97 109
N Franklin^ 51 4.3 .250/.353/.455 7 9 (7) 6 / 3 / 0 / 2 80 109 147
B Ryan 50 4.1 .239/.300/.304 4 11 (10) 10 / 0 / 0 / 1 103 104 99
M Saunders* 49 4.3 .167/.286/.214 7 15 (10) 5 / 2 / 0 / 0 85 97 112
E Chavez* 48 3.7 .239/.271/.304 2 3 (3) 10 / 0 / 0 / 1 97 113 83
K Shoppach 31 4.3 .148/.226/.296 3 15 (14) 2 / 1 / 0 / 1 126 70 122
J Sucre 20 3.2 .211/.200/.211 0 0 (0) 4 / 0 / 0 / 0 92 121 118

Today I learned, or re-learned, that someone gave Raul Ibanez a vote for MVP last season. Also, his hot streak in May appears to be over with which is bad news since he continues to get regular playing time. I can’t believe that this team of questionable depth filled with older, injury-prone players has suffered depth problems related to injuries. I can believe that actually. I do believe that. I may have even protested the roster construction because of that very reason.

But a non-sarcastic yay for Brandon Bantz. He’s probably never going to play in the Majors again once Sucre is back so I’m glad he at least got a start.

Batter PA P/PA Slash line nBB SO (sw) 1B/2B/3B/HR Sw- Ct+ Qual+
J Martinez 59 3.7 .281/.305/.351 1 21 (16) 14 / 1 / 0 / 1 111 85 107
C Pena* 58 4.1 .240/.362/.480 8 16 (15) 6 / 3 / 0 / 3 110 82 103
J Altuve 53 3.4 .250/.291/.346 1 7 (3) 10 / 2 / 0 / 1 115 115 128
B Barnes 52 3.5 .265/.288/.408 2 12 (9) 8 / 4 / 0 / 1 104 99 81
M Dominguez 51 3.5 .204/.216/.367 0 7 (7) 6 / 2 / 0 / 2 111 104 116
J Castro* 51 4.1 .205/.346/.432 6 12 (11) 3 / 4 / 0 / 2 98 90 132
C Carter 44 4.5 .222/.341/.583 7 16 (12) 3 / 1 / 0 / 4 96 83 98
J Paredes^ 30 3.5 .148/.267/.148 3 9 (9) 4 / 0 / 0 / 0 132 88 89
R Cedeno 29 3.8 .179/.207/.286 1 9 (8) 3 / 1 / 1 / 0 116 93 78
M Gonzalez^ 24 3.5 .292/.292/.458 0 5 (4) 5 / 1 / 0 / 1 113 103 69
T Crowe^ 23 3.4 .227/.304/.318 1 3 (3) 4 / 0 / 1 / 0 118 105 88

I miss hilariously and historically awful Brett Wallace. These Astros sure do swing a lot though. They have baseball’s third-highest swing rate in 2013 and the only team that has swung more often at pitches outside the strike zone are the Marlins. Maybe the Astros can even make Harang and Bonderman look good this series.

MARINERS ΔMs ASTROS EDGE
INFIELD -2.5 (15th) -1.0 -6.8 (24th) Mariners
OUTFIELD -4.7 (20th) -0.2 -25.5 (29th) Mariners
RBBIP 0.310 (18th) -.001 0.326 (29th) Mariners
OVERALL -7.2 (21st) -1.3 -32.3 (29th) MARINERS

This probably will not be a well-defended series of games, but at least it’s Houston at Seattle during the week so the number of people actually watching will be small.

10 JUN 19:10 – HISASHI IWAKUMA vs DALLAS KEUCHEL*

Keuchel is a home developed pitcher for the Astros, coming out of their 2009 draft. He’s never displayed much strikeout ability but could be passable at keeping pitches near the strike zone. His real talent is getting ground balls. He is the Astros only average or above starting pitcher this year according to xRA.

11 JUN 19:10 – AARON HARANG vs BUD NORRIS

Bud Norris was supposed to be the Astro’s ace for as long as he stayed on the team given that he was an early season trade deadline rumor. But Norris has really regressed this season.His contact rate spiked up three points costing him a lot of strikeouts, which were his only prominent skill. Interestingly, Norris’ pitch speeds are not down at all. Still, he holds a superficially good ERA and win-loss record (for the Astros), so some team will probably overpay and luckily it probably will not be the Mariners!

12 JUN 19:10 – JEREMY BONDERMAN vs JORDAN LYLES

Jeremy Bonderman is not long for this team. I’m surprised because after months of hearing nothing, I was writing off the entire year for Erasmo Ramirez and now he suddenly looks one or two more starts away from re-joining the Mariners. That would be swell because Ramirez showed himself to be potentially quite a good pitcher last season. You might have missed it.

Lyle doesn’t work into a lot of deep counts. Hitters swing at and make contact at his pitches at above average clips.

Reliever BF Str+ nBB Ct- K(sw) GB+ HR Qual- LI
Y Medina 51 86 7 94 10 (6) 157 0 56 2.0
C Furbush* 50 100 6 93 14 (9) 90 1 109 1.3
T Wilhelmsen 47 90 7 96 9 (9) 101 0 121 2.5
D Farquhar 44 96 4 93 18 (16) 92 0 86 0.8
O Perez* 40 101 4 93 14 (10) 102 0 110 1.2
C Capps 37 100 2 93 11 (8) 66 0 59 2.0
H Noesi 31 108 1 105 6 (4) 112 1 133 1.4
L Luetge* 28 103 2 98 6 (5) 146 2 95 0.7
B Beavan 20 110 0 110 4 (2) 126 0 40 0.3

Yoervis Medina, a guy who has surprised me with his stuff and not surprised me with his poor control, has been used in a lot of high leverage situations lately. I sure do miss Stephen Pryor, but this is also why I pretty much never count on bullpens over the winter. Relievers get hurt a lot and the small samples generate some wild performance swings to the point that projecting bullpens should be done with an extra spoonful of mean regression.

Reliever BF Str+ nBB Ct- K(sw) GB+ HR Qual- LI
P Clemens 51 97 6 97 10 (8) 109 3 99 1.4
J Veras 51 97 8 98 15 (11) 112 2 67 1.8
J Cisnero 50 95 2 91 16 (14) 109 0 81 1.3
T Blackley* 42 94 6 94 11 (11) 94 1 110 1.6
H Ambriz 39 105 0 104 7 (6) 98 2 104 1.9
W Wright* 35 106 2 105 10 (6) 127 0 114 0.9
E Gonzalez 31 98 2 115 4 (3) 72 2 114 1.2
B Peacock 30 94 5 118 4 (2) 107 1 103 1.0

Hey, Travis Blackley! That’s neat.

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Comments

One Response to “A Ripe Time for Revenge Versus the Astros”

  1. MrZDevotee on June 10th, 2013 6:56 pm

    I read somewhere that the Mariners didn’t even give Bantz a name plate in the lockerroom, so some of the veterans made a very nice “keepsake” handmade name plate for him.

    Now there’s something for the grandkids. CBSSports also gave his hat tip moment (umpire wouldn’t let him bat till he acknowledged the crowd) their play of the week.

    I was actually at the game. It was a really nice spontaneous thing– it started as almost no acknowledgement when he started to approach the batters box, which was almost embarrassing, and then en masse the crowd sort of overcompensated with an ovation when the Ginormo-tron mentioned it was his first major league at bat.

    You could see him say something to the ump, and then step back and tip his helmet.

    Fun stuff.

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