Today’s contest was a glorious victory for the Mariners over their division opponents, the Athletics, but it was also a clear lesson in the different fortunes of these two teams. The Mariners are a team that by most reports is on the rise; the A’s are… not that, and tonight’s game showed that in spades as the Mariners’ starters outplayed the A’s 40-man fringe and the Mariners beat 14 batters in a decisive 7-1 win.
Mariners Armchair GM’s popular trade target Frankie Montas opened the game by giving Adam Frazier a double down the line. Matt Olson is probably making this play, but like a skilled barber, the A’s went from an abundance of mats to no mats in an offseason.
When your first baseman is no longer Matt Olson
Ty France followed with a single to get runners into the corners. Jesse Winker chopped one on the floor for a double play, which made the run but quickly placed two outs on the board. The doubles game was particularly unfortunate as next batsman, Mitch Haniger, caught a hanging breaking ball and tattooed it in the left field corner for a double that even lead-footed France would have scored from the start. Oh.
“Sorry? I just said good vibes.”
The Mariners added another run in the second round to make it 4-0 Mariners with a small two-of-so-whatness. JP Crawford went for a walk and Adam Frazier turned an inside fastball and shot it through the infield before Ty France, swinging on the first pitch, went the other way to hit his second for the fourth Mariners run of the day . The Mariners probably could have continued with a few deep fly balls from Torrens and Winker, but Oakland’s outfield combo of the aptly named speedster Skye Bolt and Christian Paché, the top-rated prospect they received from Atlanta in the Olson trade, were All over the Mesa outfield today, they consistently battle deep flyballs and high skies. Oakland will continue to miss star defensive midfielder Ramón Laureano, who has 28 games left on suspension and may also need some extra time after suffering a sports fracture that required surgery last October. Paché won’t take a step defensively against Laureano but is far from being as skilled with the racquet and going 0-4 with a strikeout today.
Meanwhile, the Mariners’ starting serve – which could be described as a double start for prospects Matt Brash and George Kirby – was looking much sharper. Brash switched positions from last week’s double start and this time started first and was the sharper of the two. He put on an absolutely dominant performance, mowing through the A-line half-starters, hitting six in three innings and allowing just one batter to reach base (scored as an error on throw by Eugenio Suárez, who hit low and Ty France couldn’t pick him; it’s hard to tell how sharp the grounder was without statcast numbers, but I wouldn’t classify it as a egregious mistake).
Brash settled to an easy 96-98, clocking in consistently at 97 and touching 99. He of course presented the nasty slider that kicked up the puffs and garnered strikeouts on it. Here’s brazen Elvis Andrus on a slider:
But Brash also ripped off a few curveballs that showed strong sinks, flirted with a switch, and when needed ripped off some upper-90s fastballs and threw them right past Oakland batters for strikeouts. Will this approach work against Mike Trout and Corey Seager instead of Seth Brown and Skye Bolt? With this slider, I would say 100% yes with limited exposure, like outside of the bullpen, but keeping an eye on the evolution of the curveball (and changing it, although this appears to be a more recent addition to the arsenal) becomes key to Calculating where Brash settles on the pitching staff.
Brash’s six-strikeout performance didn’t go unnoticed by Pitching Twitter, where he’s become something of a springtime darling:
Brash was followed by George Kirby, and he’s quite difficult to follow, so let’s avoid comparing American apples to Canadian ones (what do Canadians even call apples? I bet something weird, like tree balloons) and instead compare Kirby to himself Kirby was a lot sharper than his last outing and showed better control of the zone while still showing that good speed.
Kirby started strong, hitting 97 while beating Andrus on three pitches before missing a pitch to Sean Murphy inches from going out. Kirby rallied to beat Seth Brown, who was chasing 97 MPH, and then fell victim to a poor defense when Chad Pinder, who’s sort of still an athlete, overtopped a slider to Adam Frazier, who absolutely per carried airmail. That seemed to shake Kirby a bit as he accompanied Kevin Smith (the baseball player, not the wide-legged jorts enthusiast) to load the bases before tricking Billy McKinney into harmlessly flying out.
Kirby’s second inning of work saw him give up a hard contact on a flyout, plus two balls on the floor, one scoring a hit when Tony Kemp smuggled a ball past a diving Frazier, who didn’t cover himself with glory defensively today. Kirby came back to hit Andrus again, blowing a high heat past him for his third strikeout of the day (Andrus’s, not Kirby’s). That hard contact on the flyout could have started the inning with significantly more damage for Kirby, but [consults notes] a strong defensive game [consults notes yet again] jess winker [double checks notes] stomped Oakland’s offensive right out of the gate.
Kirby’s third inning of the day was his best as he mowed through Christian Bethancourt, Seth Brown and Sheldon Neuse with all three on the alert. Is there a baseball term for hitting to the side? Both Bethancourt and Neuse went down facing the fastball; Brown was caught admiring a big corner bend.
The rest of the Mariners’ pitching went to great lengths to maintain the high standards of Brash and Kirby, who combined for 12 strikeouts in six innings. Anthony Misiewicz and Wyatt Mills both had redemption innings, with Misiewicz defeating Bethancourt with a dirty slider and scoring two groundouts to third baseman Abraham Toro, who handled both expertly (ignore the box score blaming him for a hit, it was a battered chopper by Patrick Frick second). Mills finished the game and showed a much sharper lead with a 1-2-3 inning with some weak contact flyballs and a strikeout.
Mariners pitching closed the A’s by the eighth when Pile member Ryan Buchter gave up a leadoff double to Christian Lopez and then passed former Mariners prospect Drew Jackson. A flyout and an RBI groundout allowed Oakland’s first run of the day to score and then Buchter walked with Sheldon Neuse, resulting in a pitching change. 26 pitches against the dregs of the A lineup is not the train. Scott’s favorite cleaner, Michael Stryffeler, was called and quickly dispatched Christian Bethancourt on a flyout.
Meanwhile, the Mariners made a few more runs against the Oakland bullpen; Zach Logue, the Oakland reserve, struggled with his command, walking Winker and beating Haniger; Jarred Kelenic almost had a base hit but Kemp robbed him but he still got the RBI and made contact with a left hander so win-win. 5-0 sailors.
In the eighth, Domingo Acevedo gave that moonshot to Cal Raleigh, who had a quiet spring; not so calm now. 6-0 sailors.
Only partial credit to the A’s broadcast for calling this a “Big Boy” home run instead of a “Beef Boy” home run, but regardless, Cal Raleigh smoked that ball pic.twitter.com/BKklXqivsw
— Lookout Landing (@LookoutLanding) March 27, 2022
On the 9th, Austin Pruitt was greeted very rudely by Dylan Moore:
That was the Mariners’ seventh and final run of the day, although Billy Hamilton came so close to hitting another knockout or at least landing another base hit, but Paché, who I’m preemptively deeply annoyed with, his once again Krug got out of trouble.
Prospectus Notes, Non-Pitcher Edition:
- First, a one-grade crap: Taylor Trammell landed in the eighth and seemed to hobble up as he ran through first; He was replaced by Tanner Kirwer in the next inning.
- Julio’s 0-on-3 line with a strikeout is uninspiring, but he also hit the ball hard twice, missing to damage just once, and was the victim of a light robbery by Skye Bolt the second time.
- Kelenic’s 0v4 series with two strikeouts is even less inspiring as both strikeouts looked awful (three pitches from Montas and another at-bat against Ryan Castellani where he was 2-0 up at the start and finished conspicuous was out), but he also scored against a left-hander for an RBI groundout, so small wins. The smallest, but still.
- Kelenic had the middle today and Julio the rights; That base-loaded flyout from Billy McKinney at the end of the inning in the fourth saw both charge for the ball but showed good communication when Kelenic yelled for it soon enough for Julio to pull away harmlessly.
One last interesting tidbit from the show, via Rick Rizzs: Apparently, in one session of infield work, Perry Hill already kicked a bad habit of Jesse Winker’s, who used to tap the field with his glove before setting up the ground ball, and his Hands left in a bad position to catch the ball. Winker has apparently already cleaned it up thanks to that Perry Hill magic, so next time you’ll want to keep an eye out for when Winker is stationed first.