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The Times sez,
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... lefty Mike Montgomery will make Walker’s scheduled start on Sunday in Kansas City. Montgomery tossed four shutout innings in relief of Walker against the Astros. He’s a former starter with a desire to return the rotation.
“We stretched out Montgomery last night for a reason,” Servais said. “Right now being it’s the last game before the break, you can kind of empty out your pen that day. We’ll give him the start, which he wants to do and he’s earned it. We’ll start that way on Sunday. That’s the plan right now. It could change. But that’s the plan.”
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We'll take that to mean --- > when the Mariners travelled 2,584.2 miles to get a fillin AAA pitcher, Mike Montgomery decided to take Scott Servais' open door policy a little bit literally. We'll further take our own wild guess and presume that Montgomery pointed out his desire to return to the rotation, and the fact that he had earned more of Servais' consideration than have the Jays' AAA players.
If accurate, and how could it not be, Dr. D approves of this. Servais less so, since the announcement is loaded with caveats and quid pro quo's. But this being a baseball chat, there's nothing stopping us from asking what happens if Montgomery throws 5-6 shutout innings rather than four.
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On the 5th, for four innings (50 pitches) Montgomery had zero problem maintaining his velocity at 94.0 MPH:
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What has always intrigued SSI about Mike Montgomery -- and by "always" we mean, "since he blistered the American League for seven starts in 2015" -- was the arm action on his offspeed stuff.
But in 2015 he got real wild, real quick, long about his 9th, 10th starts and washed out. In 2015, we felt he had one offspeed pitch that was way plus, that being his 80 MPH changeup.
In 2016, he seems to have had real command of three completely distinct offspeed pitches, all of which have run values of 2.00 or greater. From a PITCHER's point of view, here were his pitches on July 5, 2016:
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Agghhhhh, the teal starburst shoulda been blood red. Hate stuff like that. Makes me feel like I'm working a 300-reader blog rather than CNNSI.
Hyperbole aside, that is one whale of a pitch mix if you can actually throw it. On July 5th -- actually throughout 2016 -- Montgomery has been throwing it routinely. July 5th = 25 heaters, 9 changes and cutters, 7 curves. He threw 14 of the 18 changes and cutters in the strike zone.
There are precious few pitchers in the American League who attempt to use four pitches. Those who do, don't need 94+ MPH to make them work. Lessee, guys showing 10% on four pitch types in the AL ... , Sonny Gray, Chris Tillman, Cole Hamels, (almost) Martin Perez. We'll rule out Gray and Tillman as comps for esoteric reasons. Wade Miley! Miley throws four pitches. Okay, forget this article. :: crinkling sound as paper is zipped out of typewriter)
The subject was four variant pitches on which a person could at least theoretically get a swing and miss. Not two snake-tongue moshballs at -6 off a meh fastball. No offense to the insanely wealthy and mightily bearded Miley. This would leave us with Hamels, Perez, and Montgomery.
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If Wade LeBlanc can learn how to pitch from varying experiences in baseball, well, who's to say Mike Montgomery can't too. Or maybe he doesn't need to learn anything for the first seven games, anyway; his 2015 ERA was 1.62 after seven starts.
Dr. D's key to the game? Three-four pitches for strikes. :: shrug ::
That's th' name o' that tune,
jemanji
