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Q. What is Josh Tomlin's game, and how does it intersect with the Mariners' hitting style?
A. He is the most aggressive starting pitcher, stuff-for-stuff, in the major leagues. On paper, he's way TOO aggressive.
He led the major leagues in fewest walks per inning last year. Decisively. That despite the fact his stuff is marginal, with a capital M. Here it is, hit it. They do, a lot of the time.
The M's say that they do two things: (2) lay off pitches they don't want, and (1) attack certain pitches they do want. The emphasis tonight is entirely on #1. Time for the M's to show us what they can do, swinging the bat.
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Q. What IS his stuff?
A. Overhand motion, throws an 89 fastball that moves in tighter on LH batters than most two-semaers. He uses that, and an 84-85 cut fastball, that bites into LH's pretty good.
He shows an overhand change curve and a change too, but 80% of his pitches are (high) fastballs and cutters. Think Shigetoshi Hasegawa. His best pitch is that 85-mph humpback slider/cutter.
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Q. How do you walk only 1.1 hitters with that slop?
A. You know how your car's heater has a sliding bar, from cold to hot? There's a bar like that in every pitcher's head; at the left side it says WALKS and at the right side it says HOME RUNS. Tomlin rammed the slider ALL the way over to home runs.
He throws an insane 75% first pitch strikes this year, and all of his other "strike zone" stats are the same. He doesn't seem to care if yo hit a home run, but he's not going to walk you.
Makes for a fun ballgame for the Mariners. Derek Lowe challenges, and the Mariners challenged him right back into the RF seats early. Lowe didn't adjust well to the idea. The Mariners will absolutely have to splash some fences against Tomlin. It shouldn't be too tough.
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Q. He gets a pretty good SwStr% for somebody with that kinda slop.
A. He pitches REAL high in the zone. All the more amazing, considering the other stuff. That slider bar? There is another one: on the left side there is also [Ground balls and high contact rate], and on the right side it says [Home runs and swinging strikes]. Batters swing under fastballs. Tomlin has gone WAY up in the strike zone and rammed that slider bar over to HR's and swinging strikes.
So the M's lefties need to be ready for that letter-high pitch, ready to accept the invitation.
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Q. Comps for Josh Tomlin?
A. On the very high end there is Danny Haren: fastball-cutter 80% of the time, pitches up in the zone ... of course Haren has the putaway forkball, and Haren is "good."
In the middle there's Carl Pavano, fastball-cutter and refuses to walk anybody. It can be much fun to play against the Pavanos and Tomlins of the game, not fun as in "you're sure to win" but fun as in "we get to see things happening."
Tomlin's off to a patchy start this year, FWIW, and their confidence in him is wavering a bit. Kind of like if Blake Beavan got smacked around a couple games and was going in and out of the rotation.
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Q. Checkpoints for the game?
A. Would be nice to see Felix' velocity tick up a bit, again, reinforcing Grumpy's "weight loss caused training lag" suggestion. He was 89 in Japan, 90.5 in game two, and 92 in game three. He hits 93+ and the entire discussion is in the rear view mirror.
He likes to use that death-on-a-stick changeup against LHB's, so you may see 30, 40% changeups tonight.
Felix' Three True Outcomes, 8.0 / 1.7 / 0.4, would be easily the best of his career, though his 3.80 ERA doesn't reflect that yet. ERA can be misleading. I read it on the 'net.
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Jesus Montero has been going after OOZ pitches even when ahead in the count. Gotta let the game come to him, take a few walks, blast the pitch when it's there... could be there with Tomlin pitching.
We thought Dustin Ackley hit the re-set button last night; he looked back to his 2011 approach. Check the direction of his energy -- is it down the 1B line or is it back up the middle?
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The last several games, Ichiro has been en fuego ... one worry is that his production has never been great on balls hit into the air, as he's doing right now. Two smoked fly balls were caught yesterday. Check his GB/FB trends on this chart. Pretty crazy. But his LD rate has heliumed to 27.5% now, and he says he wants 20+ home runs ....
Cindy and I were there for two crushed homers in spring training. It's not a given that he won't show you a couple of more homers fairly quickly, now that the M's are not facing a composite All-Star Game pitching staff. As I believe Sully mentioned, if Ichiro's going to continue to lift the ball on purpose, he's going to need some homers to show for it. This season won't work with 6 homers total. It sure as shootin' will, with 18.
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His last six games, Brendan Ryan has slugged .533 with 6 walks. :- O
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See you at the ballpark,
Dr D
in the 9th inning of a 1 run game?
There's some dude on the bench named Wells who could have gunned down the 2nd runner in the 9th.
ARGH.
I HATE Wedge's refusal to ever swap regulars. Apparently there's some rule that all members of the starting lineup must play all 9 innings.
It's a brutally stupid rule.
~G
My number 1 thing that I hate about feeling like we should have a competitive ballclub: blowing games and making mental errors is no longer okay.
I get really pissed off now when the Mariners give up 7 runs in an inning or fail to convert runners into runs or 9th inning saves into outs.
When we suck, I don't care that much. I know we suck.
We don't have to suck this year, but we're blowing early chances to not-suck, and that really sucks.
Hard.
~G
And just look at that picture of Tomlin at the top of this page, G.
Staring at you. Smug. Knowing.
He hears your complaints. He knows that he had lost this game for 8 innings. But now he has a W. And he's smug about it.
With just a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth because he finds our frustration hilarious. Like he knew it was inevitable. But he's not even going to laugh out loud. Oh no. We don't even deserve that much. Because he's staring at you and rubbing it in with his silent smuggy smugness.
On the other, Felix was 92, 93 on the fastball. So hurray, that.
He's now allowed 1, 2, and 0 runs in 3 of his starts and is 0-1 for it.
And Tomlin's still looking, isn't he? He's so smug.
Wells isn't getting any PT, Jaso isn't getting much PT though he did hit tonight, Kawasaki's getting ZERO PT, he's not making strategic moves at all...I loved watching Felix maul the Indians in the 8th, but man...127 pitches and Choo up and you don't go to the LOOGY? If there was ever a use for a LOOGY, that was it.
I think we're figuring out why Wedge had a problem with high blown quality starts as Indians manager. He doesn't trust his lesser players to play roles and he won't use relievers he doesn't absolutely trust in close games so the starters go a little too long and the good relievers are over-exposed.
*sigh*
And slide that expression into something else, like "cooly ironic" or "mildly disturbed."
Stupid...
~G
Mushy stuff for strikes, okay. Line drives just foul, line drive single, line drive double, line out(called a grounder but didnt hit the dirt until 8 feet before the firstbaseman caught it). Seemed to my untrained eyes his weight was low. Promise I'll find something otger than Michael Saunders to comment about soon.
At this site we try to stay friendly with each other, and pretty cordial with the powers that be, but a game thread is a great place to Fan It Up. :- )
I just enjoy the stuffin' out of these kind of comments.
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Didn't see Saunders very well from the 3rd deck but from up there, that was my impression, too, that he was moving lower and more up the middle with his CG.
No need to soft pedal the Saunders issue. He could be 5 WAR or he could be off the ballclub.
Couldn't think of a caption that did the sMug shot justice. Yours will do for me too.