Game 19, Mariners at Red Sox
Justin Dunn vs. Nick Pivetta, 4:10pm
The M’s open a three-game series in Boston today with the AL East-leading Red Sox. Boston’s tied for the best record in the AL with the suddenly unbeatable Athletics, and they’ve done it by excelling in pretty much every phase of the game. Their offense leads MLB in each of the triple slash categories, and thus leads MLB in wRC+, wOBA, or whatever else you want to use. That offense is led by JD Martinez, who’s red hot and having an impressive bounce-back season; he’s tied for the AL lead in HRs with Mike Trout, Nelson Crus and a few others, and look: if it’s an offensive stat and you’re hanging around Trout and Nellie, you’re doing fine. But after a somewhat slow start, the entire group around Martinez has really picked it up. Xander Bogaerts is hitting for average, rookie Bobby Dalbec is coming on after a very rude introduction to MLB pitching in the first week, Rafael Devers is hitting for power, and journeyman infielder Christian Arroyo has been productive.
But it’s not just a good line-up. Their pitching staff has an ERA under 4 and a FIP even lower. The Sox have an ERA of 3.73 and a FIP of 3.28, whereas the M’s have an ERA of 3.87, but a FIP of 4.36. That divergence isn’t a huge surprise, as the staffs are, in a sense, opposites. It all starts with velocity: the Red Sox have loaded up on toolsy, hard-throwing pitchers, and this is key, *whether or not they’ve actually been successful.* The M’s under Jerry Dipoto have pretty famously eschewed velocity in favor of pitchability. Thus, the Sox come in with the 2nd highest average FB velocity in the game, while the M’s are perfectly fine to remain down in 28th. The Red Sox ace is Nathan Eovaldi, he of the 98mph average heater who for years struggled to miss any bats with it. The M’s have Marco Gonzales, tossing up 87mph sinkers and 84mph cutters to confuse hitters into mishits.
If Eovaldi’s the ace, then today’s starter, Nick Pivetta, is perhaps the purest distillation of the Red Sox approach. Pivetta is what you’d come up with if you asked sabermetrically-inclined baseball analysts to come up with a pitching approach. No, he doesn’t throw 105 or anything, but Pivetta throws a 95mph fastball with good rising action at the top of the zone, and uses that to disguise a hard curve that generates a ridiculous amount of downward break. Plus velocity, plus movement, clearly trying to tunnel both pitches, and then mixes in a change and slider in the mid-80s to give a different speed/movement look. It’s not wonder he’s been the sleeper pick of pitching twitter for years now.
In 421 career innings, he’s striking out over a batter per inning, or just shy of 25% of hitters faces. His walk rate’s not great, but nothing terrifying. How many All Star games has he been to? Well, :pulls collar: about that. In those 421 innings, he’s given up 264 runs. That’s a 5.64 RA9 and a 5.34 ERA over that span. He was bad enough last year that the Phillies let him go, and the Phillies were desperate for pitching last year. They’d simply seen enough.
In an era in which strikeouts are up sharply, base hits have become something of an endangered species. But not when Pivetta’s around; he’s given up 441 hits and 74 dingers. Despite looking great in terms of velo and movement, something’s not quite right with Pivetta’s fastball. Coming into the year, batters were hitting .308 off of it, and slugging .552. Righties and lefties alike hit well off of it, and while they struggle more with his curve, the ones they *do* hit tend to go a long way.
You can see why the Phillies tired of this, but you can just as easily see why the Red Sox wanted him. This is too good an arm to give up on, and after watching Eovaldi come into his own, it’s no surprise the Red Sox wanted to bet on their own player development group here. He’s got a career-high walk rate, which isn’t great, but he’s not hemorrhaging runs in the early going, so I guess that’s a good sign? I’d love to learn more about the Red Sox pitching approach, because they’re doing something fairly well. Rule 5 reliever Garrett Whitlock was plucked from AA, and in his first 9 innings has given up just 3 hits, no runs, no walks, and struck out 11. He, too, throws 95. Veteran Matt Barnes is posting his best year, with 16 Ks, 2 walks, and one run in his first 9 IP. Sure, Martin Perez is still struggling, but he’s been doing that for a decade; they’re not miracle workers.
Justin Dunn is an odd mirror image of Pivetta. Dunn, like Pivetta, throws a 95mph fastball (ok, more like 94), and a hard curve. Both have sliders, too, and esp. now, neither one is exactly a master of control or command. But whereas Pivetta’s heater – with more movement per statcast – gets hit hard, Dunn’s is trickier to square up. Both yield a ton of elevated contact – they both have very high average launch angles, as you can see from their very low walk rates. Both can struggle with HRs as a result of their approach. But while Dunn wasn’t exactly a soft-tosser when acquired, he didn’t light up a radar gun or scouting report, either. While Dunn may have closed the gap with Pivetta, that hard curve of Pivetta’s is a scouting dream, with super high spin rates and plus movement. By comparison, Dunn’s is much slurvier, much more horizontal, and perhaps harder to mirror with his fastball. Again, though, it’s Pivetta who’s had a harder time of it. Sure, Dunn’s walked too many, and may not stick in the rotation long-term, but he hasn’t been giving up anywhere near the hits and runs that Pivetta has (in a much smaller sample, to add the requisite/automatic caveat).
1: Haniger, RF
2: France, DH
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: White, 1B
6: Trammell, LF
7: Torrens, C
8: Moore, 2B
9: Crawford, SS
SP: Dunn
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In the incredibly small road sample, Seattle is tied for 4th in wRC+.
Digging for a positive here…
Mitch
Haniger.
Boom goes the dynamite.
Few things more delicious than Red Sox fan tears.