Game 23, Mariners at Astros
Justus Sheffield vs. Jose Urquidy, 5:10pm
After handling the Astros fairly well at home, the M’s meet a more-or-less full strength version today in Houston. Jose Altuve should make his first appearance since the Covid scare sidelined he and several of the Astros best hitters.
Jose Urquidy was unheralded as an Astros prospect, as he was seen as more of a command and control guy in a system that had ultra-high end talent like Forrest Whitley and a series of pop-up guys sitting in the high-90s, from Josh James to JB Bukauskas. Even the comparatively pedestrial pitchers like Framber Valdez has a huge outpitch and a tick or two more on their fastball.
But there was Urquidy, pitching in the 2019 World Series as prospect after prospect either flamed out, got hurt, or got flipped at the deadline. Not only was he on the postseason roster, he was thriving – and touching 97, while sitting 93-94. There was more in his arm than scouts and perhaps even Urquidy thought, a bit like the M’s Ljay Newsome, who was signed as a strike-throwing under-6′ righty throwing 87, but has become a perfectly adequate arm throwing 93 consistently.
Urquidy is still around, and still pitching pretty effectively in 2021, but he’s changed pretty substantially from the guy we all saw in 2019. This year – and I wrote about him last week – he’s throwing just 91-92, and he’s throwing less of his great change-up and more of his slider. That hasn’t been a good trade for him, as batters are still baffled by his cambio, but have found the slider a little easier to hit. Part of this may just be the result of how easy the ball is to pick up for righties. As mentioned last time, he has massive, kind of hilarious reverse splits in his career, with lefties unable to do much of anything and righties feasting. The slider usage may be a way to target them, and make them hit something other than his fastball.
If it’s done anything, the change in velocity has helped him limit pulled contact, which is generally the worst kind to allow for a pitcher. But he’s got a plan: he’s throwing his change and slider higher in the zone this year, and thus he’s seen a ton of pop-ups and soft fly balls. This has pushed his GB% – already quite low – to absurdly, Emilio-Pagan-style lows. The idea would be that this would push his BABIP down, as all non-HRs would be easy-to-catch flies, and with his low walk rate, you’d have a guy who’d continue to give up fewer runs than his FIP would suggest.
He’s tossed four starts, but…the plan isn’t working. His BABIP is *up* this year, as are his walks allowed. He’s giving up weaker contact, and his strikeout rate is up, but it hasn’t mattered in the short sample that is 2021. This may just be a lot of bad luck, but he’s one walk away from tying the 8 he gave up last season (he faced 25-30 more batters last year) and he’s already matched his hits-allowed from last year. In the meantime, this is a pretty good match-up for the M’s righties. They’ve done better against righties, and their right-handed bats like Ty France and Mitch Haniger don’t mind facing same-handed hurlers.
1: Haniger, RF
2: France, DH
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: White, 1B
6: Trammell, LF
7: Moore, 2B
8: Torrens, C
9: Crawford, SS
SP: Sheffield
Nick Margevicius’ start lasted only 1/3 of an inning yesterday, and that came a week after he had to be lifted from his start with discomfort in his arm. He’s now on the IL with shoulder discomfort, and will have an MRI to see what the problem is. For now, Robert Dugger, one-time M’s prospect turned Miami Marlin, turned M’s prospect (kind of) again, is up from the Alternate Site and is available tonight. It’s sounding like Ljay Newsome, who was great for four scoreless yesterday, may take Margevicius’ spot in the rotation. They could conceivably move back to a five-man rotation given the off-days scheduled in May.
Yesterday’s game was a fascinating one. Their starter was knocked out in the first. Drew Steckenrider gave up an additional run, and the Red Sox kept putting runners on throughout the game. It was the kind of game that I felt would end with a position player on the mound for Seattle and maybe a double-digit deficit on the board. A loss is a loss, and I understand it’s all the same in the standings, but I was very impressed with Seattle’s effort in what sure looked like a laugher. They scraped some runs across later on and made it a very interesting game in the late innings.
The team’s been very fun to watch. Please note, this is quite distinct from “good.” They’re still a comically top-heavy line-up, and recent games have pushed them below league average at the plate. It’s tough to think they can keep up scoring about a half a run more than their base runs would predict. But I will take a team that seems lucky and able to compete in late innings over a team that simply can’t come back and seemingly knows it. I know it’s hard to armchair psychoanalyze players from home, bringing in emotional words (“fight” “compete”) to layer over what are often random events. We can talk about luck taking the place of improvement and talent, but this is entertainment, and for right now, I’m entertained by this club.
There are warning signs all over: Kyle Lewis is struggling in the very early going, and Evan White’s still not right. Tom Murphy and Dylan Moore are looking like shadows of themselves. I’m well aware. But we M’s fans *know* losing baseball teams and lost baseball games. A loss like yesterday’s is not anywhere near the noxious types of loss we’ve experienced far too often. Sure, you can point to the reasons why it happened, or why the comeback fell short. But between Newsome’s performance and the odd fact that Tom Murphy has scored 5 runs despite just 5 hits and 2 walks. The entire bottom of the line-up struggles, but as soon as Tom Murphy gets on base, they knock him in, or get it to Mitch to do the dirty work. For some long, fortune has seemed to have out and out hatred for the M’s; there was a real maliciousness to the M’s bad luck. This year? It feels like friendly teasing. I’ll take it.
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Does anybody notice anything different with Sheffield’s splitter? Is he releasing it earlier?
Hitters are squaring him up. He doesn’t look like the same pitcher we saw last year.