Game 23, Mariners at Astros
Justus Sheffield vs. Lance McCullers, Jr. 11:10am
It’s an early game today as the M’s try to salvage a game in this series against the team that has utterly destroyed them these past two years. Justus Sheffield will try and establish some consistency and repeat last week’s brilliant start with another, while Lance McCullers tries to recapture his past glory.
McCullers’ story was a pretty easy one to describe: electric when healthy, but rarely healthy. He used a sinking four-seam fastball in the mid-90s with a demonic hard curveball from hell to limit base hits and rack up strikeouts. Perhaps a bit like Sheffield, he relied *heavily* on that breaking ball, and when his arm gave out a few times, armchair pitching coaches argued that his pitch mix was behind his health woes. I’m not sure about that, but it’s undeniable that he 1) threw his mid 80s hard curve all the time, even more often than his FB in some years and 2) couldn’t stay on the mound. That mix correlated with injury, but it also correlated with a lot of batters walking back to the bench, shaking their heads.
The righty missed 2019, and the delayed season meant he was ready to go for the 2020 sprint. But he simply hasn’t been himself, with his K rate way down, and his ERA in the early going sitting over 6. He’s all but abandoned his four-seam for a sinker, but that’s not as big of a change as it sounds: his four-seam always had plenty of sink, and with his low 3/4 delivery, it often played a bit like a sinker. In the early going, his sinker’s been…fine. It’s a little slower than he’s been in the past, and not a big swing-and-miss pitch, but his fastball never was.
The problem’s that hellacious curve. It’s simply not fooling anyone, and batters enter today slugging over .700 on it. It’s still his biggest whiff pitch, and it’s something to be respected, but we simply aren’t in a “just hope you get a fastball” or “don’t fall behind, because if you do, it’s over” situation anymore. I wonder if batters have just gotten used to a pitch he’s thrown over 3,000 times in the bigs, or if it’s just that a couple of MPH drop in velocity makes it play a bit more like a regular hard curve or slurvy slider and less like the utterly unique pitch that it used to be. Either way, M’s fans will take it.
They’ll also take Evan White’s positive day in yesterday’s 2-1 loss. He walked on 4 pitches off of Cristian Javier in one of the most befuddling 4 pitch walks you’ll see, especially from a pitcher who ended up having a great day. Then, he started his final at-bat at 3-0 against Brooks Raley beforing launching a nearly 440 foot HR to dead center. Getting ahead in the count is so critical for a hitter who’s been guessing up at the plate, and it allowed him to do some damage on fastballs for a change.
The Times’ Ryan Divish has a fun mailbag column today, and he fields a question from our own commenter stevemotivateir on White’s struggles. Divish argues (before yesterday’s game) that sending White to Tacoma wouldn’t accomplish much, as he wouldn’t face the tough pitchers that have caused him this horrendous start. The coaches seem confident that he can work through this in Seattle. Divish points to his solid exit velocities (something I think is a bit overblown, but has some relevance) and his plate discipline: the fact that he’s laid off balls and swung at strikes. That’s true, and it was on display in yesterday’s game. But I wonder if that’s more of a warning sign than it looks.
If there’s one thing major league hitters do, it’s hit in-zone fastballs. Sure, pretty much everyone has a problem with low/away sliders, particularly with two strikes, but in general, you don’t make it to this level by swinging through strikes, and definitely not fastballs. What stands out about White’s struggles isn’t that he’s missed some breaking balls – any young player will do that. It’s that he’s swung through 38% of all fastballs, and hitting .076 against them. Yesterday’s HR *and* his whiff rate trend against fastballs are great early signs that he may be coming through this. But learning to lay off sliders away – as tough as it is – can be done. It’s been a kiss of death to whiff on in-zone pitches, and White’s got to show more of this. In recent games, he’s been fouling them off, which again is an encouraging sign. But as he nears 100 PAs, he’s got to start making pitchers honest within the strike zone.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, RF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Vogelbach, DH
6: Lopes, LF
7: White, 1B
8: Gordon, 2B
9: Odom, C
SP: Sheffield
Yeah, the exit velocity was always attractive and the low BABIP sticks out, but for me it was the missed fastballs in the zone and overall contact, or lack of. His zone contact was around 73% as of Friday.
So, of course he walks and hits a home run the next day.
I hope he can gather himself and improve quickly, but we are/were starting to see more visible frustration as well.
That too is alarming.
Another solid start for Sheffield.