Game 25, Mariners at Dingers…er, Dodgers, sorry
Marco Gonzales vs. Tony Gonsolin, 4:10pm
The Mariners hit four home runs and scored 9 – count em NINE – runs, but fell to the Dodgers 11-9 after Justin Dunn was hit hard literally and then figuratively. The bullpen did what it’s done so often this season and refused to stop the Dodgers from adding on, but the M’s line-up kept putting pressure on the Dodgers’ pen, and had chances to win the game late. That they didn’t only helps their draft position, so I guess it’s what passes for a win in 2020. It was, if nothing else, very watchable.
Today, their ace faces off against another of the Dodgers’ unheralded back-of-the-rotation guys, in this case, FB/Splitter guy, Tony Gonsolin. I’ve made no secret of the fact that the splitter is my favorite pitch, as it mixes the brilliant grounders-and-whiff majesty of the change-up with effectiveness against same- and opposite-handed batters. It’s the pitch that dominated the game when I was young (Mike Scott in 1986, for example), and it’s the pitch that made Hisashi Iwakuma one of the most compelling Mariners of the last ten years.
I’ve written about this a lot, but I loved the fact that Iwakuma could throw a pitch out of the strike zone the overwhelming majority of the time, and STILL induce a ton of swings on it. Not only was he able to get whiffs by doing this despite underwhelming stuff – he didn’t mind if batters DID hit the ball. Out-of-the-zone balls put in play are, statistically speaking, really terrible for batters. If you can throw a pitch where the *best* outcome a hitter can manage is a weak ball in play, you’re doing something right.
Gonsolin throws a four-seam fastball with solid rise/backspin, and then a harder splitter than Kuma’s. So this is Kuma + 5 MPH of velo? Well, no. All of that backspin means the splitter doesn’t dive quite like Kuma’s, and as a result, Gonsolin is definitely a fly ball pitcher. And even in 2020 in Dodgers Stadium, that’s something of a dangerous game to play (as we all saw last night). Even his splitter is something of a fly ball/air ball pitch, which is interesting. On the plus side, he too gets some weak swings on it.
Batters find it hard to resist Gonsolin’s split, though it’s not quite as tempting as Kuma’s, despite being thrown a bit higher. Lucky for Gonsolin, his slider’s much better than Kuma’s ever was, and he’s working on a curve with steep vertical drop, too. Like Kuma, all of this has resulted in very low BABIPs and BA-allowed, which has allowed Gonsolin to pitch around the occasional HR (sounds like Kuma). I think he’s a very tough match-up, and better than Ross Stripling. If there’s a silver lining here, he’s made two starts this year and hasn’t pitched 5 IP yet. If the M’s get 4 IP or more against the underside of the Dodger bullpen, hey, that’s all you can ask.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, RF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: Vogelbach, DH
7: White, 1B
8: Long, 2B
9: Gordon, LF
SP: Gonzales
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Man, I thought Shed Long was struggling with his wRC+ of 52.
Then I saw Altuve’s line with 51.
Don’t look but hey, Houston’s over .500
I like that our bullpen will just cough up a 1-1 tie instead of just a multiple run lead. It’s nice that they mix it up a bit. Keeps it from being boring.