Seattle Sports Insider

M's 4, Astros 3

Dr. Detecto cannot promise this movie will end well, but ...

Posted by

9/27/16

PLAYOFF CHANCES = 17%

Glorious victory in Houston in extras, once again keyed by our Star at second base. This leaves the M's with only the Orioles in front of them, 2.0 games' difference with 6.0 games left for each team to play. I fancy the scenario in which the M's go 4-2, the Orioles 2-4, leaving two Wild Card games in succession.

In another scenario, the O's go 3-3 but the M's win 5 of 6, seeing as we get the Orks for four games and the Orioles play the mighty Jays, and the Yankee$ ... both on the road.

Some friendly denizen might do us a great kindness by lining up the six pitching matchups remaining to both us and the O's? One thing Dr. D had noticed, though ... if the M's get a Wild Card game, it is Zeus scheduled for that game. If I recall.

Hey, we are inside one week left in the season. And the Mariners have got a big game Tuesday night. How BOUT dat. :- )

WBC-San Again

Part of DiPoto's broadcast, he spoke of certain ML pitchers (Beuhrle, Fister, Iwakuma) who throw the ball "in tunnels." He meant, on a string, front and back of the strike zone. He also spoke about the high fastball, so that if a pitcher is pulling the string, and using the top and bottom of the zone, "East and West isn't as important for those guys." Read, you don't have to live on the inner third and outer third of the plate.

This gladdens Dr. D's heart, which had many years ago tired of "keep the ball on the ground" dogma. The M's are also encouraging Taijuan to throw the high exploding strike, and slap me silly if Felix hasn't even used the top of the zone a few times lately.

Fast 'Kuma facts: his next start will take him over 200 innings; so much for the 150-IP Ferrari idea, at least this year. ... He is 16-12 in 32 starts, so only four starts in which the bullpen got the decision, of which Monday was one. ... he hasn't had quite the same stuff, with K rates and SwStr% rates down, but his 6.5 strikeouts per game are still comfortable for a Doug Fister-type pitcher.

Felix has climbed an impressive mountain in adjusting to the fact that he has minus velocity... WBC-San has a little less zip on his fastball too, but he has made his adjustment on the fly. The fans in the stands have barely noticed that Iwakuma had an adjustment to make. It's partly because he never did throw the ball by anybody, but still.

Happy Felix Day,

Jeff

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Postgame

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Hisashi Iwakuma

Comments

Orioles pitching matchups

Date	Oppo.	BAL	OPPO	Favours?
27/9	TOR	Gausman	Sanchez	Split
28/9	TOR	Tillman	Liriano	TOR
29/9	TOR	Jimenez	Stroman	Split
30/9	NYY	Gallardo	Pineda	NYY
1/10	NYY	Miley	Tanaka	NYY
2/10	NYY	Gausman	Cessa	Split

My indications of who the pitching matchup favours is based on a non-scientific glance at the last 5-6 starts for each starter. Split decisions i.e. could go either way are generally based on two comparable starters with mediocre recent results or starters with a mixture of QS and some right stinkers so next start could go either way.

So 3-3 seems not unreasonable but could go 2-4 or 4-2.

How is the Tillman/Liriano game advantage TOR?

Tillman's pitched somewhat poorly of late, but Liriano has been aweful. I'd give that match-up to the Orioles.

match-ups remaining...

For the Mariners:

King Felix vs. Mike Fiers
James Paxton vs. Doug Fister
Miranda vs. (I think) Alcantera
Walker vs. Cotton
Iwakuma vs. Manaea
King Felix vs. Mengden

The Astros roughed Felix up his last time out, but he has since adjusted his pre-start routine and made a tweak to his pitch sequencing at Stottlemyre's urging.

The Mariners miss Sonny Gray - he has had a terribe year, but I am, nonetheless, happy to see that, since he is well capable of locking us down. Manaea/Iwakuma is the start I'd worry about most against the As. And, because God seems to think James Paxton needs to learn humility, I worry about all of his starts, no matter how dominant he appears, since his BABIP is like .971.

Paxton would get the ball in a wildcard game or play-in game. If we have to play a play-in game to get to the WC, Paxton would go, then we'd be in deep doodoo, because we would have no choice but to either throw Walker on 3 days rest or start Miranda in the WC game the next day. Gyaaahhh.

If we got to the WC game directly, we'd be able to use Paxton after the off day...get another off day, and then skip right to King Felix to start the ALDS (rotation would go Felix, Iwakuma, Paxton with the extra off-day during the ALDS)

Meanwhile, Baltimore is stacked up thusly:

Gausman vs. Sanchez
Tillman vs. Liriano
Gallardo vs. Stroman
Miley vs. Pineda
Bundy vs. ? (Severino is in this slot but he only pitched 1 innings last time...and not, apparently due to injury or severe ineffectiveness)
Gausman vs. Cessa

That Yankee series looks very favorable to the Orioles. :( And they have been able to line up the top of their rotation for the Jays series as well.

Fun fact.

The AL is 29 games over .500 in 2016. So, in interleague play, they've played roughly .515 ball against the NL. Things that make you go hmmmm

Things that make you go hmmmm

I was following the 9th inning on mlb.com last night, pitch by pitch.

I was a little bummed that a red hot Cishek didn't get to throw to the 1st guy in the 9th......but that isn't of real interest to me now.

I flipped away from mlb.com after the Astros tied it and then singled to put runners on 1st and 3rd with just one out. I was too bummed to watch things go up in flames. But about 3:00 AM I woke up dead sure that the M's had won the game on a HR from a left-handed hitting rookie. I was so sure it was weird. I couldn't decide if it was Gamel or Vogelbach, but eventually decided it must be Gamel because he was in the game for defensive purposes.

And then the paper tells me this morning that it was our LH hitting veteran who was the home run hero. Drats......I was wrong.

Sort of. Weird how clear it was though.

LH rookie

Sounds like you just feel he has that much production remaining. Sounds good to me.

I thought about Kuma's probable 200 innings the other day. If I said before the season he'd be the only one over 160 innings you'd probably ask if all the rest were injured, traded or demoted. Yup. Yet we're still in it. Hopefully Felix clears 150 IP.