Game 145, Royals at Mariners
This game could hope to be half as interesting as last night’s game.
Paulino vs. Pineda, 7:10 pm
Pitch face aside, Paulino doesn’t interest me much, but he may manage to give up a home run or two.
Pineda’s second start in August was the point at which he broke his previous season high in innings pitched and he’s getting a full month of starts on top of that. Last year, towards the end there were reports of his mechanics starting to fall apart a little and he lost some command as a result, so if I were around for this game (hint: I won’t be) I would be checking to see how he looked physically. Any evaluation should also take into account that recently he’s been warming up while he’s out there instead of prior to the game. I would throw in some kind of remark about Pineda’s past elbow problems, but that was in an era when the org was shutting down pitchers left and right at the slightest sign of trouble, which makes it difficult to judge the severity of said elbow issues.
This is all an avoidance of talking about the lineup which will spur its own comments.
RF Ichiro!
SS Ryan
2B Ackley
LF Carp
1B Smoak
DH Kennedy
C Olivo
3B Seager
CF Saunders
Game 143, Royals at Mariners
Looks like no thread went up for last night’s exciting Furbush vs. Williams pitching match-up/Liddi’s debut. Whoops.
Hochevar vs. Vargas
The 2005 draft gets a lot of press for being that time when everything went right for everyone but the Mariners and the Cubs (Mark Pawelek!) and valuable players were had by most. People don’t talk about the ’06 draft in the same way, for a number of reasons. Hochevar was supposed to set an uncomfortable precedent by going back to the independent leagues instead of signing with the Dodgers and then pitching himself into first overall. To date, Brandon Morrow accumulated more WAR as a Mariner than Hochevar has over nearly six hundred innings with the Royals.
Greg Reynolds, who went second to the Rockies, was a polished pitcher with good stuff who was thought to be able to move quickly because he had great command of his heater and solid secondary offerings. To date, he’s logged fewer than a hundred innings in the majors and has had a negative WAR. Brad Lincoln, another top five prospect who was regarded as near major league ready, went to the Pirates and had an oblique injury and TJ postpone his debut until June of last season. His positive contibutions this year haven’t yet negated the negative ones from the previous season, and he’s struggling to strike batters out at a reasonable clip. And who could forget that Andrew Miller, the top ranked prospect by most, dropped to the Tigers due to his demands, was traded twice, and now has parts of six seasons in the majors where at no time has he been a positive contributor. Also the Orioles drafted Billy Rowell. This guy.
Morrow was picked over the local guy who went on to make good. In a sense, even if he had done well for us, he probably would have always been regarded as getting in the way of a more obvious pick. But for all his struggles here, he turned out way better than a lot of the guys selected early in that draft.
RF Ichiro!
SS Ryan
2B Ackley
LF Carp
1B Smoak
DH Kennedy
3B Seager
CF Robinson
C Jimenez
Game 140, Mariners at Angels
Haren vs. Vasquez, 6:05 pm
I don’t think that really anyone is looking forward to this. Haren is a talented pitcher. Vasquez has turned in two bad starts and may have finally run into the wall due to his lack of stuff, despite coming up as a pretty good pitcher throughout his minor league tenure. He’ll probably be facing the likes of Trumbo and Trout, and Trout hit him up pretty bad last time around. This is probably going to be unpleasant.
This is also the final regular season day of minor league action, with Jackson (4-8 loss), High Desert (10-0 victory), and Clinton (9-3 victory) already final and Tacoma still playing at the moment. I’m not holding out hope or anything, but if Liddi homers again today, he’ll have thirty on the season, and who doesn’t love round numbers? The Mariners are holding out on calling up any additional players from Tacoma until they’ve finished their game, which means that sometime in the later innings we’ll likely get word of exhausted-looking outfielders stumbling into the dugout after a day game and then a flight to Los Angeles.
RF Ichiro!
SS Ryan
2B Ackley
LF Carp
DH Smoak
1B Kennedy
3B Seager
C Bard
CF Robinson
Game 139, Mariners at A’s
Cahill vs. Beavan, 1:05 pm
Back when Beavan was first called up, I think the immediate comparisons made for him were to Doug Fister. Both are giants, had great command of fastballs unimpressive in velocity, didn’t really have other signature pitches, but got by on throwing strikes without actually striking dudes out and inducing some groundballs here and there. So how’s that comparison working out now?
Fister 2009: 61.0 IP, 14.1% Ks, 5.9% BB, 19.9% LD, 41.3% GB, 38.8% FB, 14.1% HR/FB, 5.10 FIP, 4.43 xFIP, 5.28 tERA, 4.11 ERA
Beavan 2011: 65.2 IP, 9.1% Ks, 3.7% BB, 23.3% LD, 39.7% GB, 37.1% FB, 11.6% HR/FB, 4.83 FIP, 4.46 xFIP, 5.56 tERA, 4.11 ERA
What we’ve seen so far with Beavan is a guy who is even more extreme on the balls in play than Fister, striking out and walking fewer batters overall. There has been more solid contact with him, chipping away from the groundball and flyball totals, but so far as the ERA-styled stuff is concerned (disclosure: I rarely use the advanced stuff, and have no idea if I’m using it well), they’re appreciably close to being the same overall value out of the gate. Now, Fister actually added some velocity, about a mile and a half on the fastball, from the time he got promoted and slowly shifted from relying on his change-up as a secondary offering to using the slider a lot. Beavan relies even more on the fastball than Fister did (68% to Fister’s 61.4%) and has yet to show any real preference for an offspeed pitch, but he does have better life on the fastball at present (90.7 to Fister’s 88.2 back in the day) and his high school days of throwing 96 have led to rumors that he’s back to throwing at least 92-3 during just about every spring training for the past few years. Where Beavan goes from here, if he goes down that same path Fister did or does something else, I don’t know quite yet, but we can hope that he’ll keep eating innings for us in the meantime.
RF Ichiro!
CF Gutierrez
2B Ackley
DH Carp
1B Smoak
C Olivo
3B Seager
LF Wells
SS Rodriguez
Game 105, Rays at Mariners
Bedard vs. Niemann, 7:10pm.
If this is Bedard’s last start in a Seattle uniform, I sincerely hope he goes out a winner. May you confuse and irritate a new set of beat writers, and may you win over that segment of another fanbase that isn’t given to musing about your motives and psychological make-up.
The M’s have been scouting the Detroit and Boston systems, but for now, I just hope the guy gets a nice ovation when his night is done.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Carp
6: Smoak (DH)
7: Kennedy (1B)
8: Gutierrez
9: Figgins
Reliever Josh Lueke tweeted about today’s game, “Let’s keep this train rolling!” which is just adorable.
Game 100, Mariners at Red Sox
Beavan v Beckett.
Mariners have the worst team AVG vs. RHP. The Red Sox have the best (.224 v .277)
Mariners have the worst team OBP vs. RHP. The Red Sox have the best (.289 v .353)
Mariners have the worst team SLG vs. RHP. The Red Sox have the best (.331 v .455)
Mariners have the worst team batting average on balls in play vs. RHP. The Red Sox have the best (.261 v ..301)
Or, if you like your stats Fangraph style, wOBA — .276 to .354.
On the other hand, it’s a beautiful day here and the National Weather Service forecast for Boston is
Isolated showers and thunderstorms before 9pm. Some of the storms could produce gusty winds and heavy rain. Partly cloudy, with a low around 74. West wind between 7 and 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Heh.
Game 92, Rangers at Mariners
Jason Vargas vs. Derek Holland, 7:19pm
The M’s kick off the second half with comfortably low expectations. They’re within a 8 games of the Rangers, but with the Rangers healthier than they’ve been in a while and with the M’s coming off a sweep in Anaheim, Seattle isn’t exactly a sexy dark horse pick for the division right now. Shannon Drayer’s blog post sums it up.
Derek Holland’s got very good raw stuff (the 2nd fastest average FB velocity for a lefty starter), but a home run problem has prevented him from becoming a legitimate top of the rotation starter. His peripherals are better than his ERA, but they’re not jaw dropping. After struggling with the HR ball in Arlington – and who hasn’t – he’s actually given up more on the road this year. Of course, Holland is facing the Mariners at Safeco field tonight, so all of that stuff about home runs is just hypothetical anyway. Holland’s left-handedness even gets him a bonus: Chone Figgins is in the line-up.
I’d always harbored some hope that Holland would struggle in Texas the way he did in 2009, and that the Rangers would move him to make room for Scheppers/Feldman/Ogando/Hurley/whoever, but facing a team with a wOBA of .278 on a cold, rainy evening is not going to help him put up superficially bad numbers.
As always, check out Lookout Landing’s series preview for a lot of good information on what Holland (and the other Ranger starters) throw, and how the teams fare offensively and defensively. Hint: the Mariners aren’t good offensively.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro!
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Smoak (DH)
6: Kennedy (1b)
7: Gutierrez
8: Figgins
9: Halman (LF)
On a brighter note, Taijuan Walker, fresh off his first career complete game, came in at #30 on Keith Law’s list($) of the top 50 prospects in baseball. Jackson Generals SS/concussion victim Nick Franklin’s at #40.
Chris Seddon takes the hill for Tacoma against Salt Lake at 7, James Paxton’s pitching right now for Jackson vs. Carolina, James Gilheeney faces Lancaster, Tony Butler leads Clinton vs. Great Lakes, Seon-Gi Kim’s given up a run so far for Pulaski, and Stephen Kohlscheen gets his 3rd start for Everett against Spokane.
Game 37, Mariners at Orioles
Happy Felix Day!
RF Ichiro
3B Figgins
1B Smoak
C Olivo
DH Cust
2B Kennedy
LF Peguero
SS Ryan
CF Saunders
P Felix
Peguero starts again with the right-handed pitcher on the mound. This probably makes sense considering that last year was the first in which Mike Wilson demonstrated no platoon splits. Prior to that, he had always been substantially better against left-handers, as one might expect. I’d be surprised if he didn’t start tommorow, though.
Ryan Langerhans cleared waivers and accepted his assignment to Tacoma earlier in the day. It’s still kind of surprising every time it happens.
Game 27, Mariners at Red Sox
RF Ichiro!
3B Figgins
LF Bradley
C Olivo
1B Smoak
DH Cust
2B Kennedy
CF Saunders
SS Ryan
P Vargas
Jack Wilson is still out with that eye thing, which meants we get to see more of Adam Kennedy. Olivo remains in the four spot because if it ain’t broke and all.
The Mariners have won six of their last ten and in that span allowed thirty-four runs and scored fifty. The Red Sox have won seven of their last ten and allowed twenty-five and scored forty-five. One of these teams is regarded as an up-and-comer in the power rankings and fulfilling the promise that they opened the season on. The other is not looked on in the same way.
Exhibition Game Thread, M’s at Dodgers
The Cactus League part of the season is over and done with. Now, for a meaningless game against the Dodgers in which most of the regulars will be pulled early in exchange for scrubs. This will be televised, both on FSN/Root Sports locally and MLB.TV for free and with no blackouts. I would watch it because of the possibility of prospects, but that’s just me. Erik Bedard pitching should also be a draw.
RF Ichiro!
3B Figgins
LF Bradley
DH Cust
1B Smoak
CF Langerhans
SS Ryan
2B Wilson
P Bedard
Behind Bedard, we have Wilhelmsen, League, and Ray available, along with minor leaguers such as LHP Brian Moran, Mr. Excitement RHP Scott Patterson, RHP Josh Fields, and RHP Steve Hensely available after those guys. I’d consider running Moran out there just to help wash the taste of the last outing out of his mouth. No word on the minor league position players that followed the caravan to L.A.