He just can't live in the strike zone like that, and he hung too many balls in middle of the zone. He didn't get a coupla calls on the curve, he toyed with a change, but as you say he didn't expand the zone. I was a little worried in the Spring when he said that he wanted to get his curveball out of the dirt and thrown for strikes.
"Sometimes you want to bury the ball in the dirt" says I.
Next start we'll see he he can work the black instead of the meat of the plate, and induce some OOZ swings. Maurer's game in the minors was "fastball on the edges, breaking stuff in the zone" - or at least cutting THROUGH the zone.
If he gets back to that I don't have many worries. If he wants to throw his improving change in the zone I'll allow it, but stretch the edges please. And finish your breaking stuff! :-) Next time.
Erasmo's health and physical location are a big deal to this club though. I'm with you - sooner rather than later on that front. Walker is having a Maurer-kind-of-night in Jackson right now, and Hultzen goes in a couple hours. They aren't auditioning for Maurer's slot, but I would like to see some major-league-ready performances from our young gents out of the chute, if you don't mind.
In case that #5 spot does need some wrangling...
As for the hitters, they hit plenty of hard shots - they just didn't find the open grass. Better luck tomorrow.
~G
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Q. Is Brandon Maurer suspect, after getting splashed in the sixth inning there?
A. He's not, no. He remains an SSI Best Bet after losing a game. Fancy that.
A picture's worth 1,000 words, and there's nothing we're going to write that will take the place of a postgame victory dance. It will take a 7 ip 1 er 1 bb 7 k game to calm the bleachers' frayed nerves. But you want the analysis, so here y'go amig-Os.
I'm not in the mood either, but since the game haunted Dr. D, it might as well haunt you :- )
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Q. What happened?
A. Two things: first, Maurer pitched nervously, deer in the headlights, pouring pitch after pitch into the strike zone, letter high. Ever see an athlete on autopilot? You just did.
He expanded the strike zone to one (1) hitter that I saw. This echoes Michael Pineda's early 2011 travails in which Pineda opened one game with 24 consecutive strikes (two of which were blown calls by the ump).
Second, despite the wide-eyed zombie dance, he was a victim of circumstance to a certain degree. On a lot of other days, he'd have thrown the same (subpar) pitches and gotten a quality start out of it.
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Q. Unlucky? C'mon.
A. I don't say he should have thrown a shutout. But let's take the earnies out of the equation. Which starter was which?
| Starter | IP | H | BB | K | HR |
| Visitor | 6.0 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Home | 6.0 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
One guy gave up two earnies; the other one gave up six. I've heard that ERA isn't the best way to judge a pitcher, but the stat continues to hang around.
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Q. What was that about expanding the strike zone?
A. Maurer threw 52 strikes against 22 balls, wayyyyy too many. What's worse, most of the balls were just "fails" (as opposed to "balls" that are intelligent attempts to hit the black edge of the plate, and barely missing off it). A pitcher needs to have most of his called balls occur because he was trying to expand the strike zone and just missing.
His vaunted slider, he threw 23 times ... 20 times inside the strike zone. That's autopilot.
Maurer, when pitching with an idea, will get ahead in the count and then will throw a certain number of pitches off the plate, to tantalize. The hitter will have to guess whether to swing or not. How many times did you see Maurer throw his slider --- > starting on the plate, and then breaking off it? There's your issue.
............
The A's, on Thursday, were basically able to set the back foot and get ready to swing before the pitch was in the air. The effect was that of having 2-0, 3-1 counts at all times; it's like the pitcher is "tipping" when he throws that many strikes.
Maurer would throw an okay (not great) pitch and the A's would consistently launch it, because too prepared to swing.
It's a subtle difference. But one that Maurer will correct. You can sympathize with a rookie going into a trance his first time out.
............
As well, there's the fact that the A's have a heavily LHB lineup. It wasn't a great matchup for a slider pitcher who left his brain in the locker room. They just did a good job; tip your cap.
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Q. Are the M's 3-4-5 starters going to waste their season?
A. This is what Geoff Baker gave as the Achilles' heel in his preseason. It's definitely the question to ask. "This offense will really surprise people," he flatly stated. "The back of the rotation will definitely be the holdup," he flatly stated.
He's got a fine feel for the game of baseball, we've flatly stated. Man has a forwardgoing and easy confidence about his reads. Kinda reminds me of jemanji.
Kidding!
............
Logically, it doesn't need to be a fatal problem. Not many teams have All-Star pitchers in their #5 slots; the league-average ERA is like 5.20 in that slot. Here is the Angels' rotation from last year:
| Slot | SP | ERA+ |
| 1 | Weaver | 134 |
| 2 | Wilson | 99 |
| 3 | Haren | 87 |
| 4 | Williams | 82 |
| 5 | Santana | 73 |
Later they rented Greinke, who ran a 107 ERA+ for them. The idea that a team needs 100 ERA+'s five deep is out of touch with reality. Even contenders are usually scrambling in the 4-5 slots.
That said, Erasmo Ramirez can't heal up too soon for me. He is one of the AL's 20, 25 best starting pitchers and he ain't helping us; might the M's have banked 3 of 4 games if they'd had a healthy Ramirez in the rotation?
Once we got Erasmo and Maurer running 3-4 it will be a lot more comfortable. Failing that, we need only Hultzen to find his release point or for James Paxton to learn to land on his front toe :- )
............
Wherever you are coming from, cynic or not, you'll acknowledge that the M's starters are fungible. They've got some legit draws at the deck as they go through the year.
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Q. A recap is supposed to cover the top and bottom of the inning.
A. The M's left 13 men on base, compared to the A's 5. They lost game four, yeah, but in all four games they put some quality pressure on a good pitcher. 2012, it wasn't.
Opening series split with the division champs in their stadium; somebody blow my head off. Shows ya how far we've come that we're morose over giving up a split ...
If the M's can get home 4-3 off the road trip -- Felix throwing one of the three games -- then they got the Astros and we won't be writing postgames in a cold drizzle.
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Comments
M's will send #5, #1, #2 starters out in Chicago; White Sox will use #4, #5, #1 starters. Should be advantage M's.
If Montero had ANY blame for the Saunders pitching performance, how does THE VETERAN, known for his HANDLING of pitchers get no blame for not getting the rookie out of his autopilot???
That doesn't look like advantage M's to me. That looks like Felix flattening some poor shmuck, and then the Mariners spending one game with Beavan on the mound and another game hoping Iwakuma can outpitch Chris Sale.
Heres how I handicap it: 1 game with M's ~80% probable win; 2 games with M's having ~45% chance of winning . Play that lots of times and the M's come out with 2 wins a majority of the time.
Anybody fretting Maurer's performance too much needs to chill a bit. Life is good. The kid, in his first MLB game, threw 72% of his pitches for strikes.
He did just fine. He'll be better.
All is good.
moe
Barfy the Vampire Slayer Dept.
Q: Can Blister achieve more ground balls with a higher arm slot?
A: You betcha' amigos. A higher release point can give hitters the tendancy to swing over 6the top of pitches combine that with the back spin commonly found on most fast balls and balls will be eatin' dirt mates. Careful though, too much back spin can give the heater a rising effect.
Q: Will this new delivery help Boogies game?
A: Only if it doesn't come at the expense of more line drives. He'll need to work low in the zone and stay out of the wheel house of opposing hitters.
Q; How about thin new hyped up yellow hammer?
A: We'll just call it a shows me pitch for now. But! If his release point is perfected with no tell tale wrist hinge, then yea, I'll buys it. Just keep the Ki centered and gimme some 2 to 8 movement and we'll see a truuuue knee buckling yakker.
I sez experience beats raw talent.
You bros. grokin' me
Cheers
MFW
And no matter how you slice it, 1-2-5 is preferable to 1-4-5. Especially when our 1 is the best pitcher in the league.
My fear of Chris Sale however knows no bounds :- ) and I'm having trouble not seeing that one as a loss before it starts... but yeah...
Interestingly, Vegas has tonight's game at only 110/120 in favor of the Sox. Almost as slim a line as it gets. If the M's could poach Beavan's game, the Sox would be pretty long odds to sweep the last two...
I'm an Iwakuma FanBoy, particularly after all your write-ups on him last year and your recommendation to GMZ that he keep Iwakuma over Vargas (which advice GMZ followed - shows how smart he is). I like the M's chances against anybody with Iwakuma pitching.