Game 2, Indians at Mariners
Paxton vs. Carrasco, 1:10pm
Whatever your thoughts on giving Felix the nod to start opening day, you’ve got to love it in hindsight. Not only did the M’s beat Kluber, they’ve now got their own ace going against NOT-Kluber. Mind you, Carlos Carrasco’s coming off a 5.5 fWAR season that saw him strike out 226 in 200 innings.
Carrasco got a hard fastball that he throws from a low arm slot, and he throws both a slider and curve. He’s also got a change that he throws a lot to left-handed batters. Carrasco famously revived his career after a demotion to the bullpen a few years back, and he’s been an excellent starter since (that was back in the second half of 2014). He’s got some natural platoon splits, though they’re not extreme or anything. This would seem to be a good spot to get Dan Vogelbach some ABs, but the M’s are sticking with Ryon Healy, the guy who’s shown platoon splits quite a bit bigger than Carrasco’s in his (short) career.
This is the second of two fantastic pitching match-ups to start the season. As I mentioned yesterday, we’re seeing a lot of really well-pitched games. I mentioned the Scherzer/Bailey duel yesterday, but we got several more as Johnny Cueto took a perfect game into the 7th as the Giants got their second consecutive 1-0 win, and the second consecutive game in which a Joe Panik HR was the only run of the contest. You can’t get much more baseball-in-2018 than that. David Price and Blake Snell locked up in another 1-0 game, and the Angels beat Oakland 2-1, while the Marlins finally beat the Cubs 2-1 in 17 innings. There were a few high scoring games as well, but it’s going to be interesting to see if overall run scoring is down this year. HRs have never been more common, but while scoring’s up over the 2010-2014 offensive freeze, it’s still much lower than it was in the steroid era. It’s not just that players hit a ton of HRs back in 1997-2002, it was that they got all kinds of hits, including HRs. It’s those non-HR hits that have now turned into strikeouts, keeping overall scoring low even as HRs keep increasing. It’ll be interesting to see if teams use all of their new data and technology to start giving hitters some specific help, beyond the somewhat blunt tool of the launch angle shift.
Line-up:
1: Gordon, CF
2: Segura, SS
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Haniger, RF
7: Healy, 1B
8: Marjama, C
9: Ichiroooo, LF
SP: JAMES PAXTON wooooo
We’ll be seeing a lot of Mike Marjama to start off the year, as Mike Zunino’s “sore side” really did turn out to be an oblique injury. The good news, if you can call it that, is that he’s only on the 10-day DL. The M’s recalled David Freitas from Tacoma, whose season is still a few days away (they start on Thursday, at home against Sacramento).
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13 Responses to “Game 2, Indians at Mariners”
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I was listening to 710 Friday morn and it was amazing the “energy” both from the “guys” and the call-ins. I am still of the “once bitten” twice shy genre. In fact I have bite marks all over me. ( thanks M’s). The first year of the “Ichiro/Figgins era” saw a game where that duo was on base “all night” each stole a couple of bags and scored twice – each. “Speed never goes in a slump”. Unfortunately hitters do.
That all aside. IF our pitching has above average health AND we get a real left fielder AND Edwin Diaz becomes a little more consistent AND Felix 3.0 does not try to go back to a previous build AND we get a little luck the M’s have a reasonable chance to compete for a WC bid. Opening of baseball season and spring allergies. The best time of the year.
And the usual time-honored tradition of turning off the game early has occurred much earlier in the season then it has in years past.
Ichiro fighting Father Time
Haha, Marc seems to have picked up the Cameron anti-curse – we’re down 4-1 already.
Only down 3. If they can only get to Cleveland’s bullpen…
Oh, wait…
Hey It’s good to see Angie is back.
NELLIE GOES YARD!!!
I seem to have maintained my gameday chat killing skills from last season – is it my breath?
Lawrence making Phelps injury seem like less of a problem for the team.
Nice to see the Ichi-meter return to Safeco!
Two outs… why wasn’t Ichiro running? What was the point of sticking at second?
Crud.. is Nellie hurt again?
Ichiro of old would’ve beat that one out.
… still, he’s faster at 44 than I was at 21. 😀