Games 12 & 13: Mariners at Orioles – Another Twin Bill

Game 1: Marco Gonzales vs. Matt Harvey; 9:35am
Game 2: Justin Dunn vs. Bruce Zimmermann; tbd

After yesterday’s rain-out, the M’s will play another doubleheader today in Baltimore. After splitting the first, they’ll try to win the series with another two shortened games. In the first, Marco Gonzales will try to right the ship after two rough starts. This is a good line-up to face if you want to get back to being aggressive, as it doesn’t have quite the threats that the Twins’ line-up had.

In Game 1, the M’s face Matt Harvey, one-time Mets phenom and recent punching bag. Before there was Syndergaard and deGrom, Matt Harvey was the face of the Mets pitching renaissance. From 2012-2015, sandwiched around a year off for TJ rehab, Harvey tossed 427 sparkling innings, going 25-18 with a 2.53 ERA, striking out 449 Ks to just 94 walks and 333 hits. He overpowered hitters with his four-seam fastball that sat 95-96 and a wipeout slider at 91. Before anyone else, I think Harvey made the super-hard, cutter-like “Warthen Slider” (named for the Mets pitching coach) famous.

And then, all of the sudden, it was over. He’s battled injuries, but more than that, it’s just that all of his pitches just…stopped fooling people. 2016 wasn’t that bad, especially given what was to come, but his fastball stopped being a weapon and pretty much immediately became a liability. In 2016, batters hit .325 and slugged .453 off of it, and they weren’t far behind off the once-untouchable slider.

The next year, his control left him. This meant that his slider wasn’t hit as hard, but that was probably just because he couldn’t keep it in the zone. This left him throwing get-me-over fastballs, and thus batters teed off on it. After a change of scenery and a partial recovery in 2018, he’s had plenty of opportunities to recapture the old 2015 magic. 12 starts and a 7+ ERA for Anaheim in 2019, 7 games and an ERA over *11* for the Royals last year (when batters slugged nearly 1.000 off of his slider).

He gets opportunities because he’s been so good, and because for a brief moment, he looked like he was figuring things out. It’s getting pretty late for that now, as his velocity’s down to the low 90s and the slider hasn’t been dominant since the Obama administration. The sinker he toyed with in 2016-17 is gone, and he’s back to four-seam, slider, change and curve. At least through two games, he’s been throwing strikes; the control problems seem to be improving. But the larger problem remains: he’s incredibly hittable in a game that’s now dominated by high-K, low-hit pitchers. You know, the kind that Harvey used to be.

Marco’s had a disastrous start, but it’s worth remembering that he’s been among the streakiest of M’s hurlers. In 2019, He started the year 5-0 after a brilliant April, but then collapsed in May, walking 3 in his first start of the month, and doing it again a few starts later. It culminated in his first start in June where he gave up 10 runs in 4 2/3 IP to the Angels. I was pretty much ready to write him off, but he was suddenly the April version of himself again, before losing it in an early September start against Houston. He walked 5 and struck out none, giving up 2 dingers in the process. But again, he righted the ship immediately, and finished the year strong.

The point is that for a command artist like Gonzales, the difference between being on and being completely out of sorts is incredibly fine. I’m trying to remind myself that he’s essentially the Raul Ibanez of pitchers, and that he’ll look completely cooked for a start or a month, and then pop right back to being the opening day starter, holding good line-ups down and dominating with pinpoint control and by mixing his pitches. But if the M’s are going to surprise, *these* are the games they need to win, and not just win 55-65% of, but just win them all. The M’s nominal ace is facing a just-trying-to-hang-on Matt Harvey, in a game in which the M’s have a decided advantage in line-up strength. This is not a just-try-to-give-my-team-a-chance or a keep-it-close situation. The M’s need to beat Baltimore convincingly and set up the nightcap as a momentum game.

In game 2, Justin Dunn will try to reacquaint himself to the strikezone. Fangraphs’ Brendan Gowlowski was impressed with Dunn’s stuff in his first outing, which gives me a bit of hope. It’s been 15 starts now, and Dunn’s *still* walked more batters than he’s struck out. That’s..not sustainable at all. This is an opportunity to just throw strikes; Baltimore can’t punish him for living in the zone the way other teams can, and he has to take advantage. His velo’s up, his slider is still remarkably hard to hit – everything’s ready for him to take the next step. He’s just got to throw strikes.

He’ll face off with the O’s Bruce Zimmermann, a 26 year old lefty who pitched in the Braves org before coming to the O’s in 2018. In the low minors, he overpowered batters and kept his walks in check. But his first taste of AA (still with the Braves) saw his walk rate skyrocket. He kept it in check for a while, but it resurfaces when he made it to AAA in 2019. It’s been less than 20 innings in the majors, but he’s done a good job of keeping his walks in check.

He uses a low-90s fastball up in the zone and a firm change at 85 down. He’s also got a slider and curve. All in all, it’s a remarkably John Means-like arsenal, which I suppose makes sense. The O’s had one pitching development success, and I suspect they’ll try to recapture that success with every lefty they’ve got. But while Zimmermann’s fastball’s got decent spin, it seems odd to throw it up in the zone like Means’. Means has elite vertical rise (as in, best in MLB thus far), while Zimmermann’s is perfectly average. You can snatch some whiffs with elevated fastball, but you run the risk of elevated contact, and Zimmermann’s given up 4 XBH on the pitch in his 12 IP this year.

Game 1

1: Haniger, RF
2: France, DH
3: Seager, 3B
4: Marmolejos, 1B
5: Torrens, C
6: Trammell, CF
7: Moore, 2B
8: Crawford, SS
9: Haggerty, LF
SP: Gonzales

Phew. After a rough first inning, Gonzales looked like the pitcher we saw last year. Hopefully, something clicked. Losing that game would’ve been tough, but Harvey was much better than advertised. And what a time for JP Crawford’s first extra-base hit of the year! I’ll take it, and don’t want to bury a guy who just brought in the winning runs, but Crawford’s average exit velocity has been extremely low this year, following a trend we saw last year. He’s increased his GB% every season he’s been in the big leagues, and we’re at the point now that the Crawford we saw in his first few months in Seattle is just about unrecognizable. That Crawford hit 7 HRs in less than 400 PAs. I can’t wrap my mind around that. He’s among a few players who actually hits his ground balls harder than fly balls/line drives, and while it absolutely came in handy today with that hot shot grounder into the corner, he’s got to hit the ball hard – and in the air – consistently. One of the big statistical outliers has been a collapse in the share of batted balls he pulls; he’s been going the other way or up the middle. Today’s yanked double hopefully shows he’s working on attacking hittable pitches and not just holding back and deflecting them. As Ryan Divish notes, that’s now a 5 game hitting streak for Crawford, so hopefully he’s making the requisite adjustments.

The second game should start soon (it’s 12:30 ish now).

1: Haniger, RF
2: France, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Torrens, DH
5: Murphy, C
6: White, 1B
7: Trammell, CF
8: Moore, LF
9: Crawford
SP: Dunn

If Crawford can pull the ball again, and if Evan White continues to improve making contact on pitches thrown inside the zone, then my next request is for Dylan Moore to start driving the ball again.