Upstarts: Mariners vs. Athletics Series Preview
The Mariners return home to face the plucky A’s.
The Mariners wrapped up their seven-game road trip with a pair of disappointing losses to the Twins, dropping them a game and a half behind the Rangers in the AL West. While it was encouraging to see the team earn series wins against the Braves and Astros, losing their four-game series in Minnesota re-exposed all the concerns about this team’s ability to win consistently if their pitching isn’t absolutely perfect.
Last year, the Mariners went 12-1 against the Athletics, doing exactly what they were supposed to against a 100-loss club. This year’s version of the A’s won’t go down without a fight. They’ve been surprisingly tough to beat thanks to a lockdown bullpen that features two of the best relievers in baseball right now in Mason Miller and Lucas Erceg and an offense that’s winning with an all-or-nothing approach. They’ve banked series wins against the Rangers and Orioles already and are certainly not the pushovers of yesteryear.
Robert Orr of Baseball Prospectus broke down what’s driving the A’s offense in an excellent piece this morning: in short, they’re swinging for the fences while displaying enough patience to draw walks when they can’t get a pitch to crush. It’s an approach that can be dangerous if too many mistakes are made by the pitcher, but it also leads to a ton of strikeouts. In many ways, it’s the idealized version of the approach the Mariners want out of their hitters but have been unable to realize to this point.
They’ve churned through a ton of journeymen castoffs to build this lineup and they’re getting a few contributions from some of their younger prospects. JJ Bleday has probably been their biggest success story so far; he was absolutely lost as a hitter during his first two seasons in the big leagues, but he’s cut his strikeout rate below 20% while getting to more of his in-game power this year. Old friend Abraham Toro and Tyler Nevin are the two journeymen who have produced the most atop Oakland’s lineup and Brent Rooker has continued to pound homers while striking out far too much.
Probable Pitchers
Pitching for the A’s and a couple of significant injuries have caused many to overlook Paul Blackburn’s success over the last few years, but he’s compiled a 4.07 FIP with a decent strikeout-to-walk ratio and some excellent contact management over the last three years. He’s dramatically reduced the usage of his sinker this year and is now throwing all six pitches in his repertoire between 20% and 10% of the time. His secondary pitches are all above average and he’ll turn to any of them once ahead in the count.
In the past, Alex Wood has been a solid, if unreliable starter who can rack up strikeouts when his slider is really working. That wasn’t the case last year and his struggles have continued this year. His strikeout rate dropped well below average and his walk rate has shot through the roof and a lot of that has stemmed from an inability to get batters to chase his pitches off the plate. He was reliably generating chase rates around 30% for most of his career, but metric has fallen to just 21.3% this year. When he is locating his pitches in the zone, batters are taking advantage and crushing the ball, putting him into a no-win situation.
Like Wood, Ross Stripling is the perfect sort of veteran innings eater the A’s needed to bring some stability to their starting rotation. He’s got great command of his five-pitch repertoire but none of his pitches really stands out as a swing-and-miss option. Back in 2021, he was able to post an ERA and FIP right around three thanks to a combination of elite contact management and just enough strikeouts. The whiff rates on his fastball and changeup — his two best pitches — have fallen this year and his strikeout rate has dipped to just 15.3% as a result. He’s still managing to avoid hard contact, but some pretty poor batted ball luck and struggles with runners on base have caused his ERA to shoot nearly a run and a half higher than his FIP.
The Big Picture:
The Rangers won a hard-fought four-game series against the A’s earlier this week and will travel to the thin air of Colorado this weekend. After losing the three-game series to the Mariners last weekend, the Astros continued their slide down the standings by losing two-of-three to the Yankees; they’ll head to Detroit this weekend.