Game 35, Mariners at Angels
Justus Sheffield vs. Dylan Bundy, 6:40pm
Nick Margevicius was solid once again, but the M’s couldn’t solve Andrew Heaney last night. Now, they’ll have to try to get to the Angels best starter this year, Dylan Bundy. Bundy tied the M’s in knots earlier on, but the team had begun to look a bit better – especially Evan White, who was coming out of his awful slump. But White is still sidelined with his shoulder injury, though an MRI showed nothing out of the ordinary, and White is apparently available tonight as a defensive replacement.
Like Heaney, Bundy hasn’t been on his best form his last few starts. He suffered from some bad sequencing and bad defense in his last start against Oakland, but it’s also possible that seeing Oakland for a third time in less than a month was to blame. That’s of interest to M’s fans, as this’ll be his third start against Seattle in less than a month, too. His one truly off start of the year was the one before that, against the Giants. He walked four in four IP; he has four *other* walks in the rest of his season.
One of the defining images of the year was watching Bundy strike out White on three 90 mph fastballs in the middle of the zone back in early August. But Bundy’s success hasn’t been based on his fastball, though. Batters are slugging .700+ off of it. As I mentioned earlier, he’s become much more of a junkballer, and batters have not figured out his slider (to righties) or change (to lefties) much at all, despite seeing so many of them. But that’s the sort of thing that teams *may* get better at simply by seeing him again so often. We’ll see if the M’s have better swings on his off-speed and breaking stuff, or if they try to get him into predictable counts and look fastball.
Justus Sheffield is on a roll, and I thought his emergence would be the feather in the M’s pitching coaching staff’s hat…but then Ljay Newsome appeared. No, seriously, Sheffield is the key guy they need in 2021. If they needed to shop for a starter in free agency *and* hope that Gilbert/Hancock are good to go from day 1, that’d be a tall order. If they have the best versions of Sheff and Marco Gonzales, it gets a lot easier to see. Of course, none of that matters unless the offense gets more consistent too, but that’s a separate issue. But Sheffield’s success looks a little bit like Bundy’s: he throws so many breaking balls, you hope it can still be effective against teams that have seen him often. The Angels have seen him once before, back in late July, so I don’t think he’s overexposed, but it’ll be interesting to see if Trout and company are looking slider.
While batters aren’t exactly blown away by Sheffield’s sinker, he’s given up just one XBH, a double, on it this year. Sheff’s given up just two doubles and NO HRs yet.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haggerty, LF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: Marmolejos, 1B
7: Lopes, DH
8: Long, 2B
9: Fraley, RF
SP: Sheffield
The Angels traded Tommy LaStella to Oakland yesterday for perennial prospect Franklin Barreto. Barreto was the centerpiece of the Josh Donaldson trade years ago. Barreto never blossomed for Oakland, and Kendall Graveman was hurt, and now pitches in the M’s org. Man, that deal looked bad immediately, but after years of careful consideration and nuance, it’s still awful.
Anybody still watching this game?
Sheffield will get tagged with the loss, but the game was blown open after he exited.
And the inevitable has now happened with Grotz.
No, seriously, Sheffield is the key guy they need in 2021. If they needed to shop for a starter in free agency *and* hope that Gilbert/Hancock are good to go from day 1, that’d be a tall order. If they have the best versions of Sheff and Marco Gonzales, it gets a lot easier to see.
They still need to shop for a starter in free agency, but yeah. The M’s rotation with Sheff/Marco/Kikuchi/FA starter in the top four it would mean they could throw some bodies at the bullpen (or that they could move on from Kikuchi if he’s still looking not pitching well in 2021 and the kids were looking good). It’s missing a real ace pitcher, but even a #2/#3 type would help.
Because boy oh boy, does that bullpen NEED some reinforcement.
Of course, none of that matters unless the offense gets more consistent too, but that’s a separate issue.
Well, we’d reach the “this team isn’t going to contend but isn’t actively terrible” phase of the rebuild, which is a pretty necessary step in a rebuild from a tank job teardown, that 75-80ish win phase where you’re not really a contender (unless there are 14 playoff teams) and there are flaws, but there’s enough good stuff going on that you get watchable baseball most nights.
2020 isn’t that year though. 2021 might be, depending on what road the org takes (do we hang back on salary and go for cheap and kids? Do we open up the wallet in uncertain financial times because we think we can get a good deal?) and how luck turns out (are their FA signings Taijuan Walker or Yusei Kikuchi? Did they trade for Dee Gordon or Jean Segura Did we get Kyle Lewis or Dustin Ackley? Felix or Dave Fleming?).