Game 123, White Sox at Mariners
Vidal Nuno vs. Carlos Rodon, 6:10pm
Felix wasn’t sharp, but he didn’t look obviously hurt last night. He had some issues maintaining his velo late, so we’re not out of the woods here, but Felix’s performance wasn’t clearly off. The bullpen, on the other hand…
Today, the M’s face 2014 draft pick and one of the White Sox best young players, Carlos Rodon. The lefty was a consensus 1-1 pick heading into his junior year at NC State, but some velocity fluctuation and inconsistent performances allowed him to drop a few spots to the Sox at #3 overall. He’s got above-average velocity with both his four-seam fastball and sinker, and generates loads of movement on both. His signature pitch is a sweeping slider that breaks away from his sinker by about a foot. That kind of separation is impressive, and demonstrates the kind of spin Rodon’s able to get on all of his offerings. To righties, he’ll throw a pretty good change-up that’s been better than advertised at this stage – he’s getting whiffs on nearly half of the swings on his cambio.
As promising as he is, though, Rodon’s not a finished product. Walks troubled him occasionally in college and the minors, and he’s walked over 12% of the big league batters he’s faced. Worse, he’s showing extreme platoon splits in the early going. Lefties have struggled, particularly against Rodon’s fastball, which is released from way over towards 1st base. But that fastball hasn’t troubled righties, and that’s led to some problems. While his slider is a big swing and miss pitch -even to righties- RHBs have 3 HRs off of it, more than any other of his pitches. At this point, he’s given up 9 HRs to righties and none to lefties, which is magnified by his higher walk rate to righties as well. Already, Rodon’s seeing line-ups that are stacked with righties, kind of like his teammate Chris Sale. Command improvements would help, as would learning how Sale uses his slider against righties. In the meantime, he could probably use his change-up a bit more often than he has thus far.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Trumbo, 3B
7: Jackson, CF
8: Montero, 1B
9: Zunino, C
SP: Nuno
Colorado Springs scored 5 runs late to win what had been a good pitchers duel by a score of 5-2. Tyler Olson was great, but ran into trouble in the 7th, and the bullpen couldn’t bail him out. Ariel Pena, the Sky Sox starter, K’d 10 in 5 1/3 scoreless IP. Forrest Snow starts today’s game against Zach Davies, a Puyallup native who grew up in Arizona, and was the Orioles #3 prospect when he was traded at the deadline to Milwaukee as part of the Gerardo Parra deal.
Biloxi shut out Jackson 3-0, as Tyler Wagner outdueled Jimmy Gilheeney. Wagner’s now faced Jackson twice, and throws 7 scoreless innings in both appearances. Edwin Diaz faces off with Hobbs Johnson of Biloxi today.
Bakersfield beat San Jose 5-3 behind Tyler O’Neill’s 29th HR. Austin Wilson chipped in with his 8th of the year. Brett Ash got the win, and then Emilio Pagan K’d 5 in 3 scoreless for the save. Scott DeCecco shares the mound with Giants’ prospect Martin Agosta, who just came off the DL for San Jose.
Clinton beat (!) Cedar Rapids 2-1 on a walk-off single by Austin Cousino. Kody Kerski and Pat Peterson combined to throw 4 scoreless innings in relief with 4 K’s against no walks. Zack Littell takes the mound for the L-Kings today.
Everett beat Tri Cities 6-3. Andrew Moore threw 3 scoreless innings to kick it off, and then the bats came alive late to pull away. Ryan Uhl had 3 hits, including 2 doubles, and DH Erick Mejia went 4-4. Drew Jackson singled and walked. Enyel de los Santos starts for the AquaSox today.
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29 Responses to “Game 123, White Sox at Mariners”
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Marc – stop giving pointers to the opposing pitcher! 😉
Brad Miller has been getting the Michael Saunders treatment. Miller’s still on the roster isn’t he? Less than fifty plate appearances in the entire month.
Does it bother anyone else that 2 of the M’s official sites are wrong? You would think that this site was run by the Mariners…
Did Miller trip over a sprinkler head?
Miller needs to hit the weight room more.
Alright! Miller in, Trumbo out!
Bases loaded, so what!
Guti has been taking fielding tips from Trumbo, apparently.
They’ll probably walk Guti again.
Ha! I was wrong, and Guti made them pay!!
Montero… 2K’s and a DP… Jesus… Time for Rodney to warm up…
Hey, Montero has a 2015 wRC+ of 85. He’s pretty much the prototypical Jack Zduriencik first baseman.
The M’s SS of the future is at SS, Miller needs to learn a new position. Cruz has right and Guti has left.
The Chisox catcher has brightly colored fingernails – I assume so the pitcher can pick up his signs better. Is that common? I’ve never noticed that sort of thing before.
Either that or he’s a very tolerant dad to a young daughter. 😀
Roy Campenella, the first dark skinned catcher in MLB used to back in the 50’s at night. The lights were quite poor compared to todays.
That’s interesting – thanks for the info!
Just another blown save, nothing to see here.
Crap. Come ON Carson…
And the prototypical Jack Zduriencik first baseman is something to brag about?
Seager’s not hitting… lets move him up to the leadoff spot… or at least a couple of days off… Not like any of the games matter…
Nope, bluemoonking I was being snarky about Z and his first basemen.
WWT?
Well this has turned into a very Mariners sort of game.
Sarcasm… I promised not to use profanity when mentioning Jack Z…
See user name…for reals. This season…
I can’t take another game like this…
39 more… Which will have a worse winning percentage… The Mariners or all their minor league teams put together?
Wow….this team couldn’t get worse could they? Yes…at least they got to extra innings, and didn’t lose this in the 1st inning.
Wow… After the game Lloyd rattled off what this season essentially boils down to…
The best bullpen in baseball last season has blown 17 saves already, and lost 22 of our 67 losses in the opponents final at bat.
If we only had a closer this year, and held just half of those blown saves, we’d be right in the hunt, at 65-58.
By the way, just heard Fernando Rodney has been DFA’d. (For real, not just wishful thinking…)
Well, Lloyd, if wishes were horses…
The bullpen has indeed been a hot mess, but it’s hardly the only problem this team has had. But with Jack and Lloyd trying to save their jobs, I have no doubt that’s the narrative they’re going to try to push.