Saying a three-game series before July is “must win” is of course ridiculous, but that’s what the series against the Astros felt like. Trailing the division leaders from Houston by 4-1/2 games just feels so much better than 6-1/2. Winning that series was progress, having lost it would have been doomsday.
With the division crown still very much in play, not to mention the wild card where the Angels sit only 2-1/2 games back behind a conga line of the American League’s okay-est teams, the Halos welcome the other presumed AL West favorites to town this weekend, the Seattle Mariners. Pegged by many as the team to beat in the division, Seattle is holding on to fourth place and sit 8-1/2 games behind Houston while their playoff odds have dwindled to 11.3%, per Baseball Prospectus. If not for Nelson Cruz and his 158 wRC+, this team would be hanging out in the AL basement playing Magic: The Gathering with Oakland. Or blogging. One giant reason for their woes is that Robinson Cano has been replacement level; with eight years left on his deal after this season, this is a good time to remind everyone 10-year contracts for players in their 30s are cosmically stupid. I don’t expect that Cano has fallen off a cliff already, but hopefully his pending hot streak starts next week.
Even if the Angels tread water all season and fail to make the playoffs, finishing ahead of Seattle would be a nice consolation prize. Then, all the Most Disappointing Teams Of 2015 pieces can be dedicated to the Mariners and Red Sox while the Angels ride off into mediocrity. If that’s not Angel Baseball I don’t know what is.
Game 1: Matt Shoemaker vs. Taijuan Walker
The fallout from Andrew Heaney‘s surprise start Wednesday is that Matt Shoemaker’s start was pushed back to Friday evening against Seattle. Allowing Shoemaker, he of 15 home runs allowed, to avoid the Astros and their prolific homer offense — an MLB high 107 entering Thursday — in an afternoon game on a warm day is pretty sound strategy. No need to make the swaths of children there with various day camps to witness that type of carnage. Thanks to Cruz, the Mariners are less feeble than normal and rank eighth in MLB home runs. And in 13-1/3 innings against Seattle this season, Shoemaker has allowed five taters. I like the idea of holding Shoemaker back to face a less dangerous offense, if that even played into the strategy at all, but it may not make a difference based on earlier results this season. For what it’s worth, before giving up two home runs in Oakland last weekend, Shoemaker avoided the long ball in his four previous starts. Better that than Shoemaker busting out his patented Samwise Gamgee impression.
M’s starter Taijuan Walker has also been touched by home runs this year, allowing 13. Seattle must be little disappointed with Walker’s performance this year, and his swoon is another reason the Mariners have underperformed most preseason predictions. A 4.94 ERA, 78-1/3 innings in 14 starts,* and a sub-replacement level bWAR for a prospect that was considered a potential ace is bad, but Walker is still only 22 and probably deserves some better luck, evident in his 3.80 xFIP and 4.20 FIP (heh heh).
* That’s in the bottom fifth of innings for qualified MLB starters.
Game 2: Garrett Richards vs. J.A. Happ
Can we officially be worried about Garrett Richards now? With each passing start, the fire-breathing beast we saw last year gets a little farther away and a little more seemingly flukey. With worse walk and strikeout rates than last season, his saving grace has been an ability to induce more soft contact. His hard contact rate is more or less identical to 2014, but his soft contact rate is up 2% and his line drive rate has plummeted to 13.8%, the third lowest rate in baseball. A pitcher cannot live on a low line drive rate alone; Wade Miley allows the fourth-lowest line drive rate, and Wade Miley sucks. But while we wait for Richards to miss more bats, we at least have this to hold onto.
Just Average Happ is in the middle of a career year, a relative statement if there ever was one. His 100 ERA- is his best since 2010. He is pretty boring so there’s not really much to say about him. He’s a fine and cool member of a major league rotation, which is exactly the type of pitcher that carves up the Angels nowadays.
Game 3: Hector Santiago vs. Felix Hernandez
We all knew it was going to happen eventually, but the home runs are finally starting to catch up to extreme fly-ball pitcher Hector Santiago. At 51.9%, no starting pitcher allows more fly balls. Through ten starts Santiago allowed only six home runs, but he’s seen seven balls leave the yard in his last five outings. And yet…he’s still survived and been pretty decent. The version of Santiago we witnessed for the first six weeks of the season was never real, but after some starts last year he looked destined to be a reliever. Now, it looks like he can survive in the rotation, especially if he cuts the home runs down a little. If only he could pitch deeper into games, an issue that he looked to have gotten over before recent regression. In his first ten starts he lasted at least six innings seven times; in his last five starts, he’s accomplished that once. His problem? Pitching with two outs:
Yuck. If Santiago can clean up his performance at the end of innings, then he goes deeper into games, he gives up fewer runs, the Angels use their shaky middle relief less, the Angels win more games, the Angels make the playoffs, the Angels win the World Series. Simple enough. No pressure, Hector.
Hernandez is still great, but he has been less excellent than normal. Over his last six starts has has alternated great starts with bad starts. Here’s his runs allowed each game in that span: 4, 0, 8 (and he only recorded one out in this game, so that’s good for a 216.00 ERA), 1, 7, 0. Using this highly scientific pattern, and given that Hernandez is coming off one of those bad starts, that means against the Angels….crap.
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