Game 40, Mariners at Orioles
Nate Karns vs. Tyler Wilson, 9:35am
Early game = abbreviated game post.
It’s funny the way we associated teams with a certain style of pitcher, or at least starter. The Orioles of the past few years were a great example: Miguel Gonzalez, Chris Tillman, Wei-Yin Chen all came from different countries, threw at various speeds, Chen was a lefty, Tillman a righty, etc., but there were all basically the same pitcher. They threw rising fastballs, gave up tons of fly ball contact, and used the resulting low BABIP to work around the home run issues that were a byproduct of this approach. I think most fans here would probably point to the Twins as well. Minnesota’s staff famously ranked last in baseball in strikeouts for a few years. It seemed that all of baseball followed the trend towards more and more whiffs, and the Twins decided that 1987 was great, and that they’d just like to stay. This is the club that signed Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey to free agent deals. The club that brought us Nick Blackburn, (the bad version of) Liam Hendriks, and Scott Diamond.
Given all of that, the only thing I think when looking over Tyler Wilson’s repertoire and results is: how did Minnesota miss this guy?
Wilson throws a straight fastball without much vertical rise, and he pairs it with a slow slider (MLBAM calls it a curve) and a change-up that’s remarkably whiff-proof. It all adds up to an extreme pitch-to-contact guy with above-average ground ball rates. This is Nick Blackburn reincarnate. Thus far, though, Wilson’s been fine as a 5th starter. In 66+ big league innings, he’s only given up 25 runs thanks to a very low HR rate that makes up for that fact he’s only struck out 28. That’s interesting, because in the minors, Wilson gave up tons of HRs. Is he going to get exposed the more hitters see him, the way Blackburn and, I don’t know, Blake Beavan were? I think so, and that in this era, it’s damn near impossible to be even a fifth starter with a K/9 under 4.
1: Aoki, LF
2: Smith, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Lind, 1B
7: Clevenger, C
8: Marte, SS
9: Martin, CF
SP: Karns
Rainiers open a home series against the Iowa Cubs today. In recent years, fans would’ve had this one circled on the calendar for months, as the Cubs high minors have been overflowing with big prospects, but that’s less true now. Still, it IS a good opportunity to see old friend Munenori Kawasaki, who’s now with the I-Cubs. They also feature CF prospect Albert Almora, as well as 1B Dan Vogelbach, RP Carl Edwards, Jr., and NPB single-season hit king Matt Murton. Donn Roach takes the hill for Tacoma against his former team.
Jackson opens a series against Chattanooga today with Brett Ash facing off with DJ Baxendale.
Tyler Marlette wins M’s affiliate player of the night last night with two HRs and 6 RBIs (one HR was of the grand variety). It’s been a rough year, but maybe this’ll get him going. Bako beat High Desert 10-3, by the way. Andrew Moore’s on the mound for the Blaze tonight.
Quad Cities beat up on Clinton, 9-3. Lukas Schiraldi starts today for the L-Kings against the Bandits’ Makay Nelson, who’ll be making his first career appearance above rookie-ball.
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18 Responses to “Game 40, Mariners at Orioles”
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Nice that MLB isn’t stopping the streaming of games through 710 anymore. I can listen to the early games at work without having to pay for their stupid app.
Adam Lind showed up today.
Well now, Adam Lind hit a homer!
Lind got ahold of that one, but it wasn’t really a very good at bat.
It would be nice if that turned out to be the start of something good rather than a blind squirrel happening across a nut.
For some reason I’m not optimistic about Adam Lind. Fortunately, though, we have Dae-Ho Lee if Lind doesn’t come around.
I think Lind may be just trying to do too much. He’s swinging at way more pitches than he normally does.
And in that last AB, he had a 2-0 count and then was behind the next pitch? What did he think was coming in that count?
Not only is Lind’s swing rate up significantly, his contact rate is down quite a bit – even in the zone. That’s one of the reasons I’m not optimistic about this just being a slump.
Come on, Benoit, throw strikes.
Sheesh, Rizz, why would you even consider walking Davis when Trumbo is on deck?
Exhale.
Yeah! Martin!
He seems to find Camden Yards to his liking.
Good game for Martin, apart from the stolen base attempt.
Outscored the Birds 19-7 in the series. Good work.
Woo hoo! Another series win!
I was sweating the eight inning, though.
It’s funny how baseball works sometimes, Get swept at home by the Angels (angry fist) then go to Baltimore and take 2 from the Orioles. I’ll take it!
Adam Lind, a rich man’s Logan Morrison!
Great win today, takes some sting out of the weird weekend. Definitely nice to see Benoit back, hope he was just shaking off rust.
Fun stat of the day: Leonys Martin is literally striking out at a higher rate than every 3rd at bat (43 in 123 ABs). That is almost twice his career average.
I don’t know that I share your interpretation of the word “fun”, Boise. 😀
Marc: just to let you know, although I’m not commenting much right now (just watching the games) I come here to get my dose of sanity reading your posts. I’m having to stay away from our local media which, on three wins, have them booked for the ALCS, and on three losses, ready to have the Front Office, et alia, hung from the rafters. Me, I’m just trying to get used to having a decently winning team to watch in May.
Thanks for being here.