Game 34, Mariners at Mets: Another Day, Another Giants Trade

George Kirby vs. Chris Bassitt, 4:10pm

It’s been raining all day in Queens, but it sounds like they’re going to try to get this game in. George Kirby returns home to New York to take on the Mets and their big off-season pitching acquisition, Max Scher…wait, no, it’s Chris Bassitt. The former A’s (and White Sox) starter is off to a great start, and is *nearly* matching Scherzer game for game. Bassitt mixes a full five pitches to keep hitters off balance, and has slowly but surely improved his bat-missing ability as well. He’s not just a command/control guy, but he has those skills up his sleeve.

Today, the Mariners once again made a trade with the San Francisco Giants for players on the back end of each roster. A day or so after being DFA’d in the burst of transactions that happened right before the M’s flew to NY, Stuart Fairchild will head to San Francisco (or their AAA affiliate in Sacramento). In exchange, the M’s get cold hard cash and former Reds IF, Alex Blandino.

The Giants have a roster crunch, and it’s hitting the IF/utility guys hardest, but they simply cannot resist taking a look through the back end of the M’s system. Since the season began, they’ve taken a look at Mike Ford, Kevin Padlo, Donovan Walton, and now Fairchild. The M’s have received cash, but also Prelander Berroa and now Blandino. There’s so much activity between two teams, and so much of it doesn’t seem to make sense from the Giants’ point of view. They can’t roster all of these guys, and they know that, but they just can’t stop. Donovan Walton doubled for the Giants today, and good for him. I’d still be worried about joining Mike Ford on the out-of-options and/or minor-league-free-agent path of endless transactions.

So, what does Blandino do? Well, he’s got a good eye at the plate, and it’s helped him post solid walk rates throughout his career (he was a first-round pick back in 2014). The problem is…pretty much everything else. A middle infielder (primarily 2B), he’s hit for very little power, and despite that great eye, he’s struck out at a 30% clip in 279 MLB PAs. It’s true: Blandino does not chase bad pitches. But the problem is that he’ll watch strikes as well. He’s got a freakishly low swing rate overall. Back in 2018, he and Daniel Vogelbach were two of the least-frequent swingers in the game, and that approach clearly hurt Vogelbach, but since 2018, he’s started swinging…even less?! It’s part of the reason why he’s bounced around to so many teams, but at the end of the day, Vogelbach can crush the odd mistake. Blandino…well, hey, Blandino plays 2B. He’s out of options, but will probably be IF depth in Tacoma for a bit.

1: Frazier, 2B
2: France, 1B
3: Crawford, SS
4: Suarez, 3B
5: Winker, LF
6: Rodriguez, CF
7: Ford, DH
8: Souza, RF
9: Torrens, C
SP: Kirby wooooo!

Yesterday’s 2-1 win was one of the best of the season. Pregame odds had the Mets with a nearly 70% chance of winning; odds that lopsided are very rare. They went down 1-0 in the first inning, and it looked like a boring, inevitable loss. But Marco hung tough, and the Mets pitched to Ty France, and just like that, the M’s came out with a 2-1 win. I don’t know if it’s a turning point, but it’s got to calm a lot of nerves in that clubhouse after struggling for a few weeks. It’s baseball – even bad teams will get a lot of wins, but the M’s beat one of the best teams, starting their ace, who played really well. Winning *those* games is a slightly different matter, and it was fun to see.

Levi Stoudt’s on the hill for Arkansas tonight, while Adam Macko takes the mound for Everett. Daniel Ponce de Leon faces off against Reno’s Dan Straily in Tacoma – a match-up of MLB vets.

Tacoma scored a walk-off win last night as Marcus Wilson homered to win it. It was Wilson’s second dinger of the game. Wilson’s a high-ISO, high-K OF they got off of waivers from Boston. He hits the ball hard, and has a good eye, but hasn’t really hit for average, and a bad BABIP this year has his slash line down to .215/.312/.495, which would be great in MLB, but is below average in AAA. Still just 25, it’d be good to see if he can make a bit more contact and raise his profile a bit.

San Antonio destroyed Arkansas 9-1, and Tri-City blanked Everett 8-0. Inland Empire held off Modesto 8-5, so thanks to Wilson and Tacoma for avoiding the org sweep.