Game 5, Mariners at Rangers
Noesi vs Darvish, 5:05 pm
It’s Yu Darvish’s Major League debut, so the Mariners are kind of an afterthought tonight. I had a chance to sit behind the plate for one of Darvish’s spring training starts, and his breaking stuff is ridiculous, so there’s a good chance he makes a lot of guys look foolish tonight. However, he did struggle with his fastball command all spring and seemed to live on the outer half of the plate, so the team would do well to make Darvish throw strikes before they go up there hacking. If they can get into good hitting counts, they can sit on a fastball and neutralize his secondary stuff to a degree. If he’s throwing strikes, they’re screwed anyway – at least patience at the plate will give them a fighting chance if he’s not sharp. Aggressiveness is exactly the wrong approach to take tonight.
There’s one line-up change as Jesus Montero is on the bench due to a stomach bug, so Dustin Ackley moves to DH and Munenori Kawasaki gets the start. I haven’t seen an official comment from Wedge on why Kawasaki gets the call over a guy who can hit – like say Casper Wells – but I’d imagine you’re likely to hear something about “experience” and “he’s seen this guy before”. Yes, Kawasaki faced Darvish in Japan, but he was a trainwreck. According to the M’s, Kawasaki hit .221 with two walks and 19 strikeouts in 88 plate appearances, an abysmal line that suggests that any information we should gain (which is none, really, but assuming you put any faith in batter-pitcher match-ups to begin with) from their batter-pitcher matchup is that Kawasaki can’t hit Darvish.
But, hey, that’s Eric Wedge for you. I wonder what would have to happen for Casper Wells to get some playing time? Seems like we’re not going to find out any time soon.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, DH
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Seager, 3B
Saunders, CF
Olivo, C
Kawasaki, 2B
Ryan, SS
Felix, Velocity, and Ground Balls
So, besides the Mariners stringing a bunch of singles together on Friday and Saturday, the main storyline to come out of the team’s first four games probably all have to do with Felix Hernandez. We knew his velocity was down in spring training, but it’s spring training, and he still blowing hitters away, so there didn’t seem to be much reason for concern. Then, the team went to japan, and Felix was still throwing in the 89-92 range, but again, he shut down the A’s with few problems, and the reduced velocity seemed to not be any kind of issue.
On Saturday night, though, Felix continued to throw in the low-90s with his fastball. For the first few innings, the results were still fine, but eventually the poorly located hittable fastballs caught up with him, and the A’s hit some balls really hard. But, more than the missing velocity, his location seemed to be the real problem.
I went into more detail this morning over on FanGraphs, but the short version is that I’d say his fly ball tendencies during his first two starts concern me more than the lack of top-end fastball speed. Felix’s best pitches have always been his off-speed offerings, especially his change-up. Unlike a guy such as Michael Pineda, Felix doesn’t need a mid-90s fastball to get hitters out. Even with very little separation between his fastball and change-up on Saturday, he still got eight swinging strikes on 26 change-ups, a ridiculous percentage even when facing a team like the A’s. Most pitchers would kill to have an 89-93 MPH fastball, an elite change-up, and two well above average breaking balls, which is what Felix was throwing on Saturday.
So, I’m not worried about whether Felix can get batters out with what he’s currently throwing. If it’s well located, he’d still have one of the best arsenals of any pitcher in baseball. But, if the diminished velocity sticks around, location is going to become key for him, and it’s not something that has traditionally been his strong suit. He left a lot of fastballs up in the zone on Saturday, and he’s previously been able to get away with that because those pitches have been 95+, but when they’re 92, they get whacked.
Felix’s command is better than it used to be, but it’s still not consistent from start to start. Hopefully, his velocity will come back and he’ll continue to be able to dominate with less than stellar command as he has through most of his entire career. However, if Felix is heading down the Tim Lincecum career path, and he needs to adapt to pitching off his secondary stuff instead of his fastball, he’s going to have to locate his pitches better. It’s easier to hit your spots at 92 than 95, so this might not be as difficult a transition as it sounds, but it’s one Felix may have to make.
Of course, he can make this all moot by coming out and firing 95 at some point in the next week or two, and I certainly hope that he does. But, velocity is a young man’s game, and it’s not all that surprising that Felix’s top end fastball isn’t what it used to be. The key for him to remain an elite starter will be figuring out how to keep getting the necessary sink and location to remain a ground ball pitcher, and use the secondary stuff to rack up the strikeouts. If he keeps pitching up in the zone like he did on Saturday, he might not be as King-esque as he has been in prior years.
Off Day Thread, Hultzen’s Minor League Debut
The Mariners have a day off today after playing some meaningful games against the Athletics, but unlike the last time that happened, the team will not be flying back to Arizona to follow it up with a series of less meaningful games. I’m sure this is confusing for a lot of people. While we wait with much anticipation for all of our hopes to be deflated tomorrow, as we become the first team to face Yu Darvish, today there’s a different kind of baseball/hope to pay attention to. Danny Hultzen is making his debut today, right around noon.
LF Daniel Carroll
SS Nick Franklin
3B Francisco Martinez
RF Chih-Hsien Chiang
1B Rich Poythress
DH Joe Dunigan
CF Denny Almonte
C Jesus Sucre
2B Gabriel Noriega
P Danny Hultzen
The Generals, playing the lowly Birmingham Barons (how have they not lost their title already?) have won all three games in the series so far. Paxton struck out ten over five and two-thirds innings with only two hits allowed. That was pretty good.
You can head over to the Jackson site, scroll down on the audio page, and find their “Listen Live” link. There will also be a Gameday available, but it’s not up yet. I’ll add it later?
Game 4, Mariners at Athletics
Hernandez vs Colon, 6:05 pm.
Happy Felix Day!
Sorry I haven’t been around much lately. I’ll be back on Monday.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Montero, DH
Seager, 3B
Olivo, C
Saunders, CF
Kawasaki, SS
Source: FanGraphs
Game #3 – Mariners at Athletics
Welcome back to the regular season, which is just like the last time we had regular season games, only more sparsely attended and without quite as much focus on Ichiro.
Oakland’s ace Brandon McCarthy gets the ball, just as he did in the first game in Tokyo. Jason Vargas gets another shot at the A’s, and hopes his bullpen’s a little stingier this time. The A’s have another righty-heavy line-up with Jonny Gomes DHing and batting cleanup, Josh Donaldson at 3B and Kila Ka’aihue at 1B; he only lefty is Josh Reddick.
The M’s counter with seven lefties (man, it’s nice having switch hitters) with Michael Saunders in CF and Seager at 3B.
1: Figgins (LF)
2: Ackley (2B)
3: Ichiro! (RF)
4: Smoak (1B)
5: Montero (DH)
6: Seager (3B)
7: Olivo (C)
8: Saunders (CF)
9: Ryan (SS)
SP: Vargas
GO M’S
James Paxton makes his 2012 debut tonight for Jackson, Jeff Marquez starts for Tacoma. Chris Sorce makes his first start for High Desert and Ambioris Hidalgo’s already a few innings in to his start for Clinton.
Minor League Opening Day Wrap-Up
No, we’re not going to do one of these every day, and no, this site hasn’t become a minor-league focused site, but you can see why fans of bad MLB teams focus attention on the minors. We do it because the organization has been telling us that help is on the way, and that they’re building from the bottom up. We also do it because we all know that the M’s simply haven’t been anywhere near as good as Texas (and now, presumably, LA), and so the minors are something of a respite from the hopeless fight the big club was engaged in the past two seasons.
Beyond the prospect of short-term assistance in the war against irrelevance (the M’s were technically relevant in July, but they felt irrelevant by late May or so), the start of a new minor league season always brings new story lines that may take years to unfold. It was at about this time last year that hardcore fans began to view Taijuan Walker not as a hyper-raw reach pick, but as a very interesting prospect. Of course, last year we were all paying special attention to Johermyn Chavez and Rich Poythress after their solid 2010 seasons, and at this point last year, Nate Tenbrink was perhaps more interesting than either Kyle Seager or Vinnie Catricala. Forrest Snow was an organizational arm, Mike Carp was still a blah 1B, and we had no idea that Detroit had a 3B prospect named Francisco Martinez, nor why we would care if they did. These are essentially anecdotes, and while encouraging, they don’t directly address the fact that the Rangers have better baseball players than we do. But we keep looking, hoping to find a pattern – a sign that something fundamentally different is going on, and that the next core of club-controlled stars are going to wear M’s jerseys.
To the cynic, this is the cruelest fate for the true M’s fan: relegated to scanning minor league boxes, divining evidence that the “Mariners Way” the commercials keep talking about is paying dividends somewhere. To the optimist, it’s the beautiful possibility that the AL West’s next cohort will be pretty evenly matched, or that the M’s have the edge once all of these all-stars in Arlington and Anaheim start declining. There’s plenty of room in the middle, of course, and there’s plenty of joy in seeing the contours of a new, more even division and league emerge. I have no idea who this year’s James Paxton might be, or who this year’s Kyle Seager is, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to try and find out.
So, opening day for the four full-season clubs was a mixed bag, but I can’t express how cool it is to start looking through the box scores again.
Cameron Hobson had a so-so debut for Clinton, giving up 6 runs thanks to 3 walks and a grand slam in just 3 innings. The top three hitters, Jamal Austin, Guillermo Pimentel and Daniel Paolini went hitless. Jabari Blash tripled and Ramon Morla tried to help everyone forget about his 2011 with a double, a walk and a steal.
High Desert hung on for a 9-7 win over Lancaster in Adelento. SS Brad Miller homered and tripled, John Hicks hit 2 doubles from the DH spot (Jack Marder played C tonight), and Stefen Romero went 4-5 with a double and a homer. Jay’s pick as the breakout player of 2012 isn’t wasting any time.
Jackson cruised to a 3-2 win over Birmingham, as Andrew Carraway stole the spotlight from Paxton/Walker/Hultzen with 6 scoreless innings. He yielded 2 hits and 1 walk and racked up 6 Ks, and while Birmingham’s light on legitimate prospects (as it’s a White Sox affiliate), Carraway’s line is excellent. Rich Poythress had a two-run, two-out double and Nick Franklin was 2-3. Stephen Pryor gave up 2 runs in the 9th, but got the final out.
Tacoma dropped its opener to Salt Lake 3-2. Angels pitching prospect Garrett Richards was extremely tough, with a well-located 94-97 mph fastball, a big breaking curve ball in the 70s and a slider in the 80s. He struck out Trayvon Robinson and Carlos Triunfel (the 1 and 2 hitters) twice, en route to 7 Ks in 7 innings. Mike Wilson homered and Carlos Peguero managed two hits off of Richards, including a triple that probably carried 415 feet on a frigid night in Tacoma. Vinnie Catricala didn’t appear overmatched, but he also didn’t look too comfortable at the plate. The first grounder hit to the left side turned into a grisly run after a bad bounce and a bad throw left the batter on third and a runner scoring from first. Catricala didn’t move well to his left to grab it, and then things went downhill from there. Catricala made a decent play later on (that was dropped by the 1B), so it’s too soon to say much about his defense. Angels uberprospect Mike Trout went 3-5 as the DH, as he’s been nursing a shoulder injury and some sort of virus.
Pictures after the jump:
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Rainiers Opening Day Game Thread
Season Preview below. I’d link to it, but just scroll down – it’s not that hard.
Tacoma is opening up at home tonight against Salt Lake City. First pitch is at 7:20, with pregame festivities beginning at 7:00. Matt Fox will be on the hill for the Rainiers, which isn’t super exciting, but if you go to Cheney, you’ll get to see Vinnie Catricala, Carlos Triunfel, Adam Moore, and some guy named Mike Trout for Salt Lake. Garrett Richards, a good prospect for the Angels, is taking the hill for SLC as well.
If you don’t want to trek down to Tacoma, you can listen to the game or watch it on MILB.tv.
2012 Tacoma Rainiers Preview
Before we get into it, there is one last, less exciting aspect of “who’s going where?” and that is the usual round of releases. The first one in mid-March cleared out thirteen while the second got rid of another ten. A lot of these releases, I was initially pretty surprised by, but then I went to look up the stats from last season and saw that it’s largely the non-performers and guys who saw limited time, but it will remind you of certain things, like how Danny Cruz never lived up to the bonus, how Kasparek’s career stalled, and how McOwen and Shaffer were both interesting fourth outfielder prospects at one time.
And did you know that Colorado Springs has a humidor now? It’s true!
This is the end of this round of graphomania. Thanks to Marc, who let me use some of the pictures he’s taken to help break up the text slightly. I’ll be back not this Monday, but the Monday after to talk about what’s been going on in the first week and a half. For now, enjoy opening day.
2012 Jackson Generals Preview
I’ll say it publically because the rest of you are thinking it anyway: there are going to be many, many days where I would rather watch this team than watch the Mariners. Good lord, it’s like all of our best prospects landed here. This will be either the stuff of legends or the most depressing footnotes you will ever read.
2012 High Desert Mavericks Preview
So what, nine hours later and one response to the previous preview? I feel like I’m throwing these to the wind, like so many batted balls leaving Mavericks Stadium. Segue!
I was looking it up the other day and it surprised me to discover that the Mavericks have been the Mariners’ Cal League affiliate since 2007, which was when Saunders went through. 2007! It’s such a long time! Someone could have entered and completed an entire PhD program in that span! And which of the two collections of data would prove more valuable? Of the hitters and the degree holder, who would have a more inflated sense of self-worth, who would stand a better chance on the job market within the same field? Further jokes! Okay, let’s get on with it.