Game 89, Twins at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Kevin Correia, 7:10pm
Just before and after I got back from abroad, everyone talked about how well the M’s were playing and the fact that they jumped to the top of the wild card race. Sounds great! And then the team scores three runs in three games on the south side, getting blanked by Hector Noesi. I…are you sure it’s…they’re really leading the WC standings? The team with Endy Chavez starting? I’m not unhappy, I’m just confused.
The M’s get another chance at a weak AL Central team as the Twins come to town. Today’s starter, Kevin Correia, is like the platonic ideal of a Twins pitcher, and now that he’s pitched for a season and a half in the Twin cities, you have to admire their work in getting Correia to strike out even fewer, to generate nearly no whiffs. I have no idea *why* the Twins seem to hate strikeouts – this pathological need for their sub-par defense to make plays on every plate appearance – but they picked up the right guy in free agency. Correia now has the lowest K/9 of any starter this year, and none of Correia’s pitches have a whiff rate above 10%.
I find that latter figure absolutely incredible. Mark Buehrle has one, Kyle Gibson (the guy one spot above Correia on the K/9 trailerboard) throws two, as does Chris Young. Even bad, show-me sliders and change-ups get a few whiffs, especially if they’re thrown in the zone reasonably often. Henderson Alvarez managed to throw a season without any pitch with a 10% whiff rate back in 2012, when his K/9 slipped below 4, and his FIP crept above 5. It’s clearly possible, it’s just really, really ill-advised. There’s often beauty in simple, clean design, but this whole pitching without stuff or deception isn’t beautifully simple (shaker furniture), it’s naive and limiting (microwaved french fries as dinner). It’s actually funny to remember that Correia came up as a guy with nearly-league-average K rates. He seemed to *choose* to pitch this way when he moved from the Padres to the Pirates, and once you’ve chosen not to strike anyone out, it’s only a matter of time before the Twins pick you up.
Correia signed a 2-year, $10 million deal before the 2013 season, and has been a decent #4-or-so starter for them thanks to good control and good health. He’s odd, but he’s not without his uses; he seems to be roughly worth that contract, and if you’re going to complain about odd Twins signings, the Kendrys Morales deal was stranger (and the results have been uglier, at least so far). Partly because everyone can make contact, and in part because his breaking stuff eschews sharp, er, breaks, he has small platoon splits.
1: Saunders, RF
2: Jones, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Zunino, C
8: Ackley, LF
9: Miller, SS
SP: Iwakuma
Speaking of Morales, he spoke (through an intepreter) about contract negotiations with Seattle to Todd Dybas of the News Tribune here.
Tyler Pike, Lars Huijer, Matt Palmer and Rigoberto Garcia are on the hill for M’s affiliates today.
Game 88, Mariners at White Sox
Taijuan Walker vs. Hector Noesi, 11:10am
This isn’t the first time the M’s have faced Noesi, and it’s not the first time they’ve seen him since enthusiastically cutting him back in April. Still, this is his first start against his former team/enabler, and it’s M’s fans first chance to see him since he hooked up with pitching coach/reclamation guru Don Cooper. Many of you will remember that it took Cooper something like 25 minutes to turn Matt Thornton from homer-prone, fungible M’s reliever into one of the premier left-handed relievers in baseball. Could the same thing happen again?
If it does, it’s obviously going to take longer than it did with Thornton. Noesi’s improved a bit with the Sox, but that’s regression for you: he had nowhere to go but up. He’s still yielding too many HRs for a guy with his stuff, and while his K rate’s gone up, he’s both too hittable and too wild for that to matter too much. When the M’s acquired him, he looked to have the makings of a formidable sinker; even if he didn’t strike many out, the sinker should’ve allowed him to get grounders and avoid 0-2 HRs. Instead, he’s become an extreme fly ball guy, and his “sinker” now gets fewer grounders per ball in play than his four-seam fastball. The root of Noesi’s problems has always been the fastball. Batters have hit a remarkable 25 HRs off of his four-seamer in his career, including seven in two-strike counts. Coupled with that below-average sinker, and Noesi’s simply not able to get to his breaking stuff. He’s experimented with a cutter this season, and there may be something salvageable in his change-up, but for them to play, Noesi needs to spot his fastball far better than he has.
Cooper’s done some amazing work in the past, but his record isn’t exactly perfect. The fix with Thornton was a mechanical one, and that doesn’t appear to be Noesi’s problem. For whatever reason, Noesi likes to pitch up in the zone, but he hasn’t had the command to either get whiffs or avoid mistakes while doing so. That’s something Cooper could help with, but it’s probably not exactly news to Noesi.
Taijuan Walker makes his second start of the year for the M’s. He’s still throwing 95, still has the good slow curve, but he pitched a bit differently in his first start than he did last season. The story of 2013 was the development of Walker’s cutter, a hard (91mph) pitch with slider-like horizontal movement. Some scouts who saw it raved about it, while I never saw it when it was “on.” In any event, he threw very few (if any) against the Astros – the pitches coded as “cutters” came in with horizontal movement almost identical to his four-seamer. Maybe he saw that and ditched it in favor of his splitter/change, or maybe the M’s are making a conscious decision to have him go with the splitter against lefties instead. We’ll learn more today.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Buck, C
8: Ackley, LF
9: Miller, SS
SP: Walker
The M’s have moved Felix’s next start to Friday, so he’ll face Oakland instead of Minnesota, and potentially lining him up to start against Jeff Samardzija. No word yet on who’ll actually start that Thursday game in Minnesota.
Starting today in the M’s system are Erasmo Ramirez, Victor Sanchez, and Lukas Schiraldi.
Game 87, Mariners at White Sox
King Felix vs. Jose Quintana, 11:10am
Happy Felix Morning!
There’s nothing better after a night of parties, over-indulgence and explosions than watching Felix continue his run of dominance. His FIP is now below 2, driven by a remarkable walk rate and an even-more-remarkable dearth of HRs. Felix’s ground-ball tendencies have always helped him keep the ball in the park, but he’s refined his approach, and if this is evidence of a real skill, then Felix really has re-fashioned himself into a Kershaw-style uber-ace. Tony Blengino talked about this in a great post at Fangraphs last month. The gist is that while production on balls in play is much more volatile than the trusty three true outcomes, some pitchers show a clear, repeatable skill in minimizing damage on balls in play – they generate weaker contact than others. For many years, Felix was decidedly not one of them – it didn’t matter thanks to a great K rate and high grounder rates. This year, Felix is putting it all together and the results have been astonishing.
The one negative heading into today is the park. Felix has given up more HRs at US Cellular field than any other road stadium except Anaheim. He’s pitched eight games on the South Side and has given up more HRs than he has in *19* games in Arlington, or 17 in Oakland. It’s a HR-friendly place, as Roenis Elias can attest, but so’s Arlington. Felix just hasn’t fared particularly well there.
The M’s face Colombian lefty Jose Quintana, a completely uninteresting but remarkably effective starter. Originally signed by the Mets, and then released, then signed by the Yankees and released, re-signed, and re-released, he shot through the White Sox system to post a decent half-season in 2012. His K% improved markedly last year, and he’s maintained those gains this season. He too has cut his HRs-allowed, and has helped stabilize the Sox rotation behind Chris Sale. He uses a four-seam fastball at 92-93mph, along with a curve ball and change. The curve’s his best – he uses it against lefties and righties, and it’s an effective put-away pitch, and it’s helped him minimize his platoon splits.
The line-up:
1: Jones, CF
2: Bloomquist, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Saunders, RF
9: Miller, SS
SP: King Felix
The big news of the day is the blockbuster trade between Oakland and the other Chicago team. The A’s are sending their TWO top prospects, SS Addison Russell and OF Billy McKinney, along with SP Dan Straily to the Cubs in exchange for SPs Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel. The A’s have some room at the top of the division, but they’re clearly looking to fashion themselves into a dominant playoff team. Gray/Samardzija is a formidable twosome in a short series. But the price they paid was pretty high – Russell’s easily a top-20 prospect in baseball, and McKinney was their #1 pick in the 2013 draft. This is as big a trade as we’ve seen in some time. The obvious comparison is the Wil Myers-for-James Shields swap, but this one is both bigger and features teams in very different circumstances. Neither Russell nor McKinney is as MLB-ready as Myers was, but to be blatantly obvious for a minute, there are two of them.
Starting today in the M’s system are Jimmy Gilheeney, Stephen Landazuri, and Scott DeCecco.
Game 86, Mariners at White Sox
Roenis Elias vs. Chris Sale, 4:10pm
Happy Fourth of July. I’ve been away for several weeks wandering through a baseball desert, trying to bring the good news of Felix Hernandez to those who have never heard of, let alone been redeemed by, the Change-up Celestial.* It’s tough, but like any journey worth its own cost and hassle, that’s OK. I’m returning to an M’s team that’s 9 games over .500 – a record they’ve not seen since the end of the 2007 season. There are familiar issues; the team is hitting better, but they still can’t, you know, HIT the way other teams can. They brought up and then sent down Jesus Montero. They’re still playing a lot of Endy Chavez. But they’re winning, and they look like a team that can stick around the playoff race this season, and while it’s actually pretty great to just wake up and hear that the M’s won again, I’ve missed watching this team play.
Today, the M’s head to Chicago to take on Chris Sale and the White Sox. Jeff had a great post at Fangraphs talking about Sale’s evolution following some injury scares (including a DL trip that cost him a month earlier this season): he’s throwing a lot more change-ups and fewer sliders. What’s interesting is just how little it’s mattered. He still strikes out plenty, still shows good control, and is still devilishly hard to square up. That Sale is still an elite pitcher can’t be a huge surprise, but it highlights something that we M’s fans have known for a while. Great pitchers can throw any number of pitches and be successful. Young Felix was at least partially defined by the Royal Curve, the inhuman bender that hitters couldn’t adjust to after watching 97mph four-seamers. After his injury scare in April 2007, Felix hasn’t thrown THAT curve, and he hasn’t thrown as many overall. It didn’t really matter. Likewise, that Sale’s still Sale despite fewer sliders shouldn’t be that surprising. He still throws very hard and from a strange release point. He still faces overwhelmingly-right-handed line-ups, so you could argue that such a shift is overdue.
One thing Jeff pointed out in that article was that Sale’s generating a lot more foul balls this season. This has helped him pitch from favorable counts more than he has in previous seasons, and thus it’s not surprising to see that he’s posting his lowest walk rate. An underrated aspect of this development has been his sinker. He’s throwing fewer sinkers than ever in 2014, and it was never his main fastball. He’s throwing his change-up more, and he’s also throwing it harder than he has in previous seasons, all while his four-seam fastball velocity drops slightly. At this point, his sinker and change-up have essentially identical movement – both have tons of horizontal movement and very little vertical rise. The only difference between the change and sinker is velocity, and while it’s still substantial, it’s no longer the 10-11mph it was in 2013. With batters now expecting more change-ups, Sale’s used his sinker as a get-ahead pitch, throwing it first-pitch much more often than he does in any other count. And it’s his sinker that’s seen the biggest increase in foul%, moving from 16% fouls last year to over 20% this year. That’s still a tiny sample considering Sale’s missed time this year, but it’s an interesting adjustment, and it’s one we’ve seen from a few pitchers this year (Hisashi Iwakuma among them).
Roenis Elias has made his own adjustments. The first time we saw him in Spring Training, the thing that jumped out was his variable release points, especially against lefties. Versus righties, he was almost traditional, with a 3/4 to high 3/4 delivery. Against lefties, he’d occasionally drop down to an almost Sale-esque low 3/4 release. At the time, the M’s talked about how they’d clean that up and have him use the same delivery to everyone…and then Elias ignored that and maintained a couple of discrete, identifiable deliveries against lefties. But over the last month, he’s looking more and more, uh, normal. The gap in vertical release to lefties and righties is all but gone, and while there’s still a gap in horizontal movement, that looks more like a shift on the rubber (ie. moving towards first base a bit vs. lefties) than a change in his motion. I’m not even going to speculate why he’d do it, but while repeatability and consistency are prized by scouts, I love seeing pitchers adapt and react. It seems to me like a separate skill or tool, and while you certainly don’t want a pitcher to overhaul his delivery or pick up a new pitch every time he has a so-so start, when guy like Felix or Sale have fundamentally altered their approach, it’s important to demonstrate the ability and willingness to evolve.
Finally, I’m not the only one returning today. DH Corey Hart’s all better now, and will probably think twice about attempting a stolen base the rest of the year. LF Cole Gillespie was DFA’d to make room on the 25-man roster.
Go M’s! Baseball! America!
1: Bloomquist, SS
2: Jones, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Hart, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Saunders, RF
9: Ackley, LF
SP: Elias
Tacoma heads to Fresno for the 4th of July Game – Andrew Carraway starts tonight. Last night’s big fireworks show at Cheney Stadium was preceded by a brilliant start from Jordan Pries, who’s come out of nowhere to be an important prospect for the M’s. The Rainiers won 5-1, as Pries went 7IP giving up 1R with 7Ks.
Other starters tonight include Tyler Olson for Jackson, David Holman for High Desert and Jefferson Medina for Everett – Everett’s the only local team playing today, so if you want to push your intake of America to its fullest, check out the AquaSox.
* “Wait, so he plays in the city where DeAndre Yedlin plays? Right, so, uh, can we talk more about Yedlin again?”
Game 85, Mariners at Astros
Chris Young vs. Brad Peacock, 11:10 am
How about them ‘Ners, right?
I had intended to use the bulk of this preview space to talk about Chris Young, and how what he’s doing is bonkers, but I woke up yesterday morning to find at Fangraphs Tony Blengino’s “Chris Young: Is it Real or is it Safeco, which goes into far more detail than I had intended to myself. The summary is that Young is off on his own little island in the middle of the ocean. Among the other things I could add or find interesting, his BB% is higher than league average by 1.5%, as well as being above his career marks, though he has multiple full seasons in double-digits. His K% is also about 8% off league average and close to 7% off his career norms which, granted, were mostly pre-surgery. And his BABIP is eighty points lower than the league partly because of all those infield fly balls. That said, it’ll be harder to get the ball to stay in the park in Houston.
As much amusement and intrigues as there are in trying to analyze High Mariner, I suppose there’s the other guy on the mound to consider, though Marc has probably covered all the basics before. The White Sox series will be more relaxed. Brad Peacock, in his 72.2 innings has the same xFIP as he did last year in 83.1 innings and that’s not something you see every day. Ks, BABIP, and walks have all trended in the wrong direction, but he’s stranding more and not allowing as many home runs. He’s scaled back the fastball this year and increased usage of both of his breaking balls and the results, I suppose, are all right. Despite the fact that he throws two breaking balls and doesn’t show much of a change-up, he’s had reverse splits in the majors, contrasted with his minor league work, which ran as expected. I was prepared to complain about the knee-jerk “play the splits” lineups, but I suppose this one could be excused.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C John Buck
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
Your other news: Jarred Cosart, on twitter, described his performance as “[running] into a buzz saw.” Jeff wrote about Taijuan Walker this morning. Mavericks pitcher and local product Andrew Kittredge struck out five in an inning, which was neither the first time it has happened nor the only time recently. Paxton threw on flat ground today, is still alive, should get another bullpen and then a sim game shortly.
Another thing I’ve thought about recently: Minute Maid Park, Tropicana Field, two AL stadiums that you could nickname “The Juice Box.”
Game 84, Mariners at Astros
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Jarred Cosart, 5:10 pm
Driving home from work last night, I realized that the Young vs. Bauer game in the last homestand marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Mariners playing their last game at the Kingdome, and while I had known about it, I had completely forgotten to mention it. I apologize for this regrettable omission.
Writing up intra-division pitching match-ups can be a bit of a pain. I know that if a guy hasn’t pitched against the M’s this season, I can talk a little bit about his arsenal, what he’s been up to relative to prior seasons, various introductory level bits of data. With the teams that we see with unbalanced regularity over the course of a season, writing up pitching match-ups in that style is like bumping into someone for the third or fourth time and realizing that you’re still trying to get their name down. In my defense, this isn’t my regular shtick and I’m not accustomed to thinking about major league players on other teams except as names to attach to the game I’m listening to.
Cosart is a late-rounder who did all right by himself in spite of that. Classic “put it in play” groundballer whose weakness is not so much elevating pitches to where they’re hit out of the park, but missing too often and not inducing enough swings to compensate for that with Ks. He’s basically a fastball/curve guy too, whereas groundball-oriented pitchers usually prefer sliders as their breaking pitch. There are splits from left to right, but left-handers tend to lose a little bit in average and make it up in power numbers. To no real surprise, he allows a greater slugging at home, so we could have another dinger-tastic game in the offing. I could be down with that.
Of course, it could also be a bad thing because ‘Kuma hasn’t been ‘Kuma the last couple of outings. Was it the neck thing lingering? Is it something else? What we’ve had the past couple of times out is a lower groundball and strand rates than we’re accustomed to seeing and a higher BABIP. Home runs have been allowed each time, but unlike the Erasmo Ramirez variety of home run, they have not been preceded by multiple walks. He’s also had a rather short leash, not exceeding 80 pitches either time out. Naturally, my distracted brain was drawing conclusions and saying “yeah, he was throwing too many pitches and that’s why he was pulled,” but nope, wasn’t happening, and you look at his strike% and it really isn’t all that bad. He was at 71% in Kansas City and 67.5% against Boston, both better-than-league-average marks by a sizable margin. The problem has more been a good amount of not-good contact. I wish I had something more substantive than that, but I’m radio-only for most of my baseball consumption and that makes objectivity a more difficult task. I try to visualize what’s happening on the field and all I get is the South Side of Chicago and Southern League baseball centering around Memphis.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
Go ‘Ners!