The Beginning: Mariners vs. Red Sox Series Preview
Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this opening of spring days.
It was a long and winding road to get to this point. At times, it felt like the Mariners were heading backwards, sideways, and every which way except forward. But they managed to red paper clip their way into a roster that looks roughly as talented as it has the past few seasons. Was every stone left unturned? Absolutely not. Their ability to construct a competitive roster under the artificial constraints placed on them by a risk-averse ownership group would be impressive if it weren’t so frustrating. We can put all that behind us now. Today, our eyes turn towards the horizon. We yearn for glorious summer days followed by better autumn days. Welcome back baseball.
Welcome to another year of series previews. If you’re a regular Lookout Landing reader, welcome back. If you’re a new face, welcome home. This will be my tenth year writing these previews which doesn’t actually seem possible. Above, you’ll see a brief overview of the upcoming series: probable pitchers, game times, and a rundown of the Mariners and their opponents. Below, you’ll see the Mariners’ opponents laid out in more detail: projected lineups, key players, and pitcher analysis. Finally, you’ll get a view of the big picture: AL West and Wild Card standings. As always, I appreciate your feedback and hope that these features continue to be helpful and educational.
The Red Sox are stuck in that weird limbo between competing and rebuilding. There’s plenty of talent on their roster but they just don’t look good enough to keep pace in the very competitive AL playoff picture. They have a new chief baseball officer in charge in Craig Breslow, though his ability to effect change on the roster was hamstrung by an ownership group that has greatly reduced payroll from their recent historic highs. After back-to-back last place finishes in their division, there isn’t much hope they’ll climb out of that basement unless a host of things go their way this year.
After trading away Mookie Betts and letting Xander Bogaerts walk in free agency, Rafael Devers is the lone member of the 2018 World Series winning roster left. He signed a massive 10-year extension last year and is the foundation of their lineup. The challenge will be to find core pieces to surround him with. After a slow start last year, Triston Casas looks like he could be one of those pillars. From the beginning of June through the end of the year, he slashed .299/.397/.556 (155 wRC+) with 18 home runs. The only new regular in their lineup is former-Mariner Tyler O’Neill who was acquired in a December trade. He’ll provide a ton of pop and more than adequate defense in left field. That move pushes Masataka Yoshida to designated hitter, getting his lead glove off the grass and allowing him to focus on reestablishing his elite plate discipline that disappeared last year.
Probable Pitchers
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Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images
With Lucas Giolito sidelined for the season with an elbow injury, the Red Sox will turn to Brayan Bello to make their Opening Day start. They might have done that anyway even if Giolito was healthy because they signed Bello to a big six-year extension this spring. He’s far from a finished product, but Boston recognized an opportunity to lock up a young starter for the foreseeable future and jumped at it. Bello’s best pitch is his changeup which he uses to generate both swings and misses and weak contact. Less effective are his two separate fastballs and his slider; those pitches have shown promise in the past and he worked on improving them this spring.
Nick Pivetta had a weird season last year. He lost his starting job in mid-May, added a sweeper to his repertoire in June, bounced back and forth between the bullpen and rotation until September when he finally made a string of strong starts. Altogether, he put up some very encouraging numbers, particularly during the second half of the season after adding that additional breaking ball to his pitch mix. The sweeper gives him a pitch that sits in between his big 12-6 curveball and his hard gyro slider, and all three of those breaking pitches generate plenty of whiffs.
Kutter Crawford started off the year in the bullpen but joined the rotation full-time in June. From that point through the end of the season, he posted a 4.20 ERA that outpaced his 3.64 FIP. His four-seam fastball is excellent with plenty of carry up in the zone to generate whiffs. His namesake pitch is a nice compliment to earn weak contact but the rest of his secondary offerings are a mixed bag. That’s one reason why he had trouble pitching deep into games. He needs to do more to differentiate his slider and sweeper, though both breaking balls returned pretty good results for him last year. Emphasizing either one in his pitch mix should give him a weapon that would alleviate the pressure on his heater to carry the load in his arsenal.
The Red Sox have never settled on a full-time role for Garrett Whitlock in his three seasons in the big leagues. That could explain why he’s never really established himself as a consistent contributor. He’s also dealt with a number of injuries over the years which has limited his development. His arsenal is heavily dependent on his secondary offerings; his changeup has an elite velocity differential off his sinker and its arm-side break provides plenty of deception off his fastball. His best pitch is his sweeper which he developed from his old slider a few years ago. He ran a whiff rate of nearly 50% with his breaking ball last year and he needs to figure out a way to incorporate it into his pitch mix a bit more.