Minor League Update: G... (04/16)
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April 16, 2015 What You Need to KnowCanoooooooooooo!
The Wednesday Takeaway
and it’s a good thing he did, because the Mariners didn’t have a whole lot else going for them in their bid to avoid a sweep at Dodger Stadium. A second straight rough start for Taijuan Walker dug Seattle into an early 3-0 hole. And thanks in part to one of the worst baserunning blunders you’ll ever see, the visitors never dug themselves out.
Hopes were high for the 22-year-old Walker after an outstanding spring, but his electric stuff has yielded nothing but disappointment two starts into his 2015 campaign. After a nine-run shelling at the hands of the A’s last week, Walker wasn’t up to the tall task of quieting the Dodgers lineup.
The right-hander had quite literally zero knee-high command of his arsenal, working thigh-high and above for the duration of his stay. Van Slyke’s two-bagger was the result of one such location mistake. Adrian Gonzalez’ second-inning RBI single was another. And by the end of his night, Walker was saddled with five runs on six hits and four walks in just four innings on the hill.
Seattle’s offense tried to claw back in the top of the fifth, but Joc Pederson wasn’t having it. Mike Zunino led off the frame with a ground-rule double, and Justin Ruggiano turned in a single two batters later. A speedier runner might have made it 5-2; Pederson’s throw beat Zunino to the plate by five feet.
The sixth inning proved more fruitful—and embarrassing. An error by Gonzalez gifted the visitors another leadoff baserunner. Then, Robinson Cano singled, Nelson Cruz walked, and the bases were loaded with nobody out. Sensing trouble afoot, Don Mattingly pulled his starter, Brett Anderson, in favor of Paco Rodriguez, and the Dodgers traded a run for an out on Kyle Seager’s grounder to first. That brought Logan Morrison to the plate with Cano on third, Cruz on second, and nobody on first.
Pop quiz, just to be sure: Cano is on third. Cruz is on second. Who’s on first?
If you answered “nobody,” “no one,” “first base is empty,” or any variant thereof, you passed. As for Cano…
Welp.
That boner left two men on with two away, a decidedly worse outcome than having the bases loaded with one out, particularly for a team trailing by three. Zunino followed with a fielder’s choice, and the inning was over. Cano was the last Mariners runner to touch third in the 5-2 defeat.
As consolation, the now 3-5 M’s came away with Cruz’ tater streak intact, three games shy of the franchise record set by Ken Griffey Jr. in 1993. But the Dodgers have a historic run to cherish, too—and a timely one, to boot. Gonzalez, who added a sixth-inning double to his early RBI knock, has reached base at least twice in each of Los Angeles’ nine games to date. No Dodger had done that since
the man of honor around the league last night.
Quick Hits from Wednesday
By that time, 34 batters had stepped into the box to face the Indians right-hander, and not one of them had come away with a knock. To find the last time a starting pitcher held opponents out of the hit column for nine-plus innings to begin a season, you’d have to venture all the way back to 2001, when Hideo Nomo—who tossed a no-hitter in his first start of the year—did it for the Red Sox.
Jose Abreu led off the top of the fourth with a single, which snapped Bauer’s run, and the Indians’ 1-0 edge was soon in grave danger. Bauer walked LaRoche to put the first two men on, and then allowed a single to Alexei Ramirez after striking out Conor Gillaspie, loading the bases with only one out. The next batter, J.B. Shuck, popped out, leaving it all up to Geovany Soto. Here’s the pitch plot from that pivotal at-bat:
With nowhere to put Soto, Bauer elected not to mess around with his assortment of specialty offerings, sticking instead to fastballs and cutters. He missed badly with his first one, more than six inches outside, then missed the hitting area again, this time by more than a foot. Fortunately, Soto found it prudent to go fishing for the 1-0 pitch, digging Bauer out of a possible 2-0 hole. The righty greatly appreciated the help, considering his 1-1 pitch was juuuuuuust a bit upstairs. His 2-1 was more than a little high, too, but Soto was apparently determined to squander count leverage in every possible way. And that’s when Bauer got his act together:
94, at the knees, on the outside black, to catch Soto looking and leave the three runners afield.
That was Bauer’s sixth K of the day, and he’d finish with eight in six innings. The White Sox finally plated a pair in his final frame, but not before Lonnie Chisenhall padded Cleveland’s lead with a two-run fifth-inning double. Four relievers teamed up to secure the 4-2 win, with Cody Allen navigating a walk and hit batsman for his second save.
***
The Nationals committed another error on Wednesday, a poor throw by third baseman Yunel Escobar, tacking on to their NL-leading total, which now stands at 10. Escobar’s miscue, which granted Xander Bogaerts two bases, helped the Red Sox to draw even after a two-run Washington first.
Perhaps that was all part of a grander plan—a plan to let Ian Desmond, who’s responsible for 60 percent of the Nats’ errors to date, atone for his sins. The shortstop launched a low breaking ball from Wade Miley high over the Green Monster for a solo shot that put the visitors back on top. And the Nationals, in danger of being swept in the three-game set at Fenway, didn’t look back from there.
A single by Jayson Werth, two walks, and a three-run Wilson Ramos double later, it was 6-2 Washington, and Wade Miley—who cruised through the early innings of his Red Sox debut—was heading for the showers. Anthony Varvaro came on in relief and fared no better, surrendering back-to-back doubles to Dan Uggla and Michael Taylor that broke the game wide open, 8-2.
All those extra tallies proved important, because Gio Gonzalez was far from peak form in the matinee, too. He served up two doubles and a Hanley Ramirez homer between the fifth and sixth innings, aiding the Red Sox’ bid to eat into the deficit. Fortunately for the Nationals, a two-run Tyler Moore jack in the seventh left the home team down five at the stretch.
That’s when Matt Williams summoned Rafael Martin, a 30-year-old veteran of the Mexican League who soared through the farm system in 2014. The right-hander’s story has twice caught the eye of the Washington Post, which first reported on his journey in 2010 and caught up with Martin earlier this spring. If his major-league debut is any indication, Hollywood might call before too long.
With an average fastball velocity in the high 80s, Martin is no flamethrower. Late-afternoon shadows at Fenway contributed to the five whiffs he generated with the heater. But should his next outing come in a more hitter-friendly setting, Martin also boasts this:
Shane Victorino is now well acquainted with Martin’s slider, the pitch that “turned heads” during spring training when the Nats fawned over its incredible spin rate. He was strikeout victim no. 4 in a string of five straight, which put Martin in exclusive company:
Xander Bogaerts, who K’d looking, was the last hitter Martin faced. The Gio Gonzalez-nicknamed “Mexican Assassin” needed 38 pitches to notch six outs, so Drew Storen took over in the ninth to wrap up the 12-5 win.
***
You can’t win if you don’t score, and it’s tough to score without putting runners in scoring position or hitting home runs. The Pirates have found that out the hard way over the past two days at the hands of two first-year Tigers starters.
Shane Greene, who came over from the Yankees stifled the Pittsburgh offense for eight innings on Tuesday, and Alfredo Simon, who was acquired from the Reds, did the same last night. Much like Greene, Simon relied more on inducing weak contact than missing bats, recording just two strikeouts and five swings-and-misses in 108 pitches. But outs are outs, and Simon got the Pirates to make 24 of them before Joakim Soria slammed the door.
Clint Hurdle’s lineup has had just two at-bats with a runner on second base since the eighth inning of Monday’s series opener, in which the Bucs slugged a pair of seventh-inning home runs. Over the 19 frames since then, the Pirates have booked six hits—all singles—zero walks, and one hit by pitch. The HBP victim, Andrew McCutchen, was promptly caught stealing second.
That’s a shame, too, because the Tigers haven’t exactly pounded Pittsburgh pitching. Their only run Wednesday came on a solo shot by long-ago Pirate Rajai Davis, the first of the season for the outfielder.
The Tigers now own four shutouts on the young season, both of them in pairs, the first at the expense of the Twins on April 6th and 8th. Detroit’s foes have failed to score in half of its eight wins to date.
***
Speaking of the Twins—they handed the Royals their first loss of the season on Wednesday, leaving the Tigers alone atop the AL Central for the first time this year.
Kyle Gibson turned in 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball, scattering nine hits while punching out three. But he and Edinson Volquez were neck-and-neck until Oswaldo Arcia came to the plate in the last of the fourth.
Volquez’ 1-2 fastball strayed far from the inside target set by Salvador Perez, the baseball landed in the right-center field seats, and since neither club would score the rest of the night, the Royals’ dream of a 162-0 season ended with that swing of the bat.
The Defensive Play of the Day
Here’s Kevin Pillar, auditioning in case Spiderman 4 someday gets made:
That wall-climbing grab kept what was, at one point, an 11-1 romp from getting even dicier than the 12-7 final score.
What to Watch on Thursday
There are only six games on today’s slate, two in the early afternoon ET, three in the early-evening ET slot, and one late-night affair on the west coast. Here’s a nugget to file away for each of those times…
John Lackey gets the ball for the Cardinals as they finish up their home series with the Brewers, and the former Red Sox was none too pleased to see his old Blue Jays nemesis Adam Lind join him in the NL Central this offseason. Lind is 15-for-28 (.536) lifetime with six doubles versus Lackey, though they haven’t locked horns in more than two years (April 6th, 2013).
Lackey’s approach against Lind has been fairly straightforward: hard stuff and curves away with a handful of sliders darting in. Unfortunately, for righties to have success against the 31-year-old first baseman, they need to coerce him into chasing pitches off the plate or below the zone, and Lackey has not yet figured out a way to fool Lind. Keep an eye on his pitch selection this evening to see if a two-year layoff turns the tables in this heretofore one-sided matchup (1:45 p.m. ET).
***
If Aaron Sanchez wants to stick in the Blue Jays rotation for the long haul, he’s going to need to throw more quality strikes than he did in his 2015 debut. The right-hander was tagged for three runs on seven hits (two homers) and two walks over just 3 1/3 innings on April 11th, as the Orioles forced him to expend 61 pitches to collect 10 outs. Sanchez issued just one unintentional walk, but he was consistently behind in the count; only 30 of his 57 non-IBB pitches went for strikes, and a whole lot of those were center-cut sinkers:
The Rays lineup might not look as formidable as Baltimore’s, but any major-league club can punish the assortment of location mistakes that Sanchez granted the O’s. He’ll try to exhibit better command in tonight’s duel with Chris Archer, who blanked the Marlins over seven one-hit innings his last time out (7:07 p.m. ET).
***
Finally, end your day with the Diamondbacks and Giants, who’ll kick off a four-game series in San Francisco this evening. Archie Bradley impressed the home crowd in his major-league debut by outgunning Clayton Kershaw with six scoreless innings. The 22-year-old navigated four walks by permitting just one hit, and he picked up a half-dozen punchouts along the way. Bradley’s task won’t get any easier in start no. 2, as he’ll take on another elite left-hander in the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner. The World Series MVP’s most recent outing went off the rails quickly at Petco Park; he was charged with five runs on 10 hits while recording only nine outs. Bumgarner blamed his mechanics on the San Diego dud, telling reporters that the issue “shouldn’t be a difficult fix.” Tune in tonight to see if he’s ironed things out (10:15 p.m. ET).
Daniel Rathman is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @danielrathman
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The Stash List: Second Edition, 2015
More like "Ca-d'oh" amirite?