Game 82, Mariners at Orioles
Mike Leake vs. Jimmy Yacabonis, 12:05pm
The M’s ended the first half on 100-win pace. The team is absolutely compelling to watch, even if it’s never quite clear *why* they’re so good. Avoiding out-and-out awful play is a big part of that, as John Trupin wrote about at LL, but then, their big trade acquisition – Alex Colome – has actually stunk it up a bit, as has big free agent signing Juan Nicasio. It just doesn’t matter, because the team is both good and preternaturally blessed with perfect timing, two things we saw in last night’s extra-inning win. Long may this continue.
Today, the M’s face anachronistically named Jimmy Yacabonis, who was just called up by Baltimore. Yacabonis has a good fastball – it sits in the mid-90s and has remarkable sink for a four-seamer, and he pairs it with a slider with lots of horizontal break. Poor Jimmy’s problem is that he has no real idea where those pitches are going. In the last two years, he’s tossed 23 MLB innings and has somehow walked 19 batters, against only 9 Ks. Despite the velo, he’s never been a big K guy in the high minors either, and despite that sink, he’s nothing special in terms of ground ball rate. Yacabonis is a guy who throws hard, and that’s essentially it.
Mike Leake’s coming off his best outing of the year, 8 shutout innings in Boston. He’s continued to stymie lefties, which is interesting for a sinker/slider/cutter guy, but he’s done well as he’s upped his change-up usage over the course of 2018.
1: Gordon, 2B
2: Segura, SS
3: Haniger, RF
4: Cruz, DH
5: Gamel, LF
6: Healy, 1B
7: Herrman, C
8: Heredia, CF
9: Romine, 3B
SP: Leake
Nelson Cruz’s bad back has healed enough that he’s back in the line-up, and Kyle Seager gets a well-earned off day following his heroics last night.
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3 Responses to “Game 82, Mariners at Orioles”
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Leake another solid start and the M’s bounce back and beat an Orioles team going nowhere after struggling against the Yankees and Red Sox. Back to 20 games over .500. Hopefully they can pad the win total some more against a reeling Royals team now.
Those pesky Athetics keep winning! Need to try to create some separation and get big couple of wins against the Royals before they start facing some real stiff competition. It’s absolutely stunning to see how far the Angels are falling after losing Ohtani, was he really that much of a game changer!?
I think the Angels were pretty fragile and weren’t going to be able to overcome too many bad breaks. An implosion after losing I Ohtani was pretty shocking though.
Same could be said about Seattle yet we’ve lost everyone and keep winning. I don’t get to watch too many games being on the east coast and I get alerts we are down in the ninth yet don’t feel hopeless. I don’t care if this is all luck and random (the extra innings and 1 run games) we’ve been without any for about 20 years I’ll take it.