Series Preview: Mariners (63-45) vs. Blue Jays (48-59)

For the first time since May 17, the Mariners do not hold a playoff spot outright. They enter play today in a virtual tie with the Athletics. It’s as much a result of the Mariners prolonged slump as it is the brilliance of the Athletics over the last few months. They’ll play each other 10 times in the next two months. No matter what happens in the other 40-ish games they’ll play, those 10 games will likely determine the winner of the second Wild Card spot.

After going 10-13 in July with the least number of runs scored in the majors, the Mariners begin August with a four-game set against the Blue Jays. Like so many of the other middle-class teams in the American League, the Blue Jays have endured their share of bad injury luck and poor performance, pushing them lower and lower in the standings. They entered the year with decent odds to challenge for the second Wild Card spot but quickly saw those odds dwindle to 0% by the beginning of July.

Like the Rangers and the Angels, they were in a weird position at the trade deadline where they weren’t exactly sellers. Sure, they moved J.A. Happ and a number of their relievers, but they also have enough talent on the roster to believe they can just retool this coming offseason. Their biggest looming problem is what to do with Josh Donaldson. He’s a free agent after this season but has dealt with a variety of lower body injuries this season. It’s possible he’ll be an August waiver trade candidate.

After an extremely slow start to the year, Kendrys Morales has completely turned his season around the last two months. In June and July, he posted a 141 wRC+. He hasn’t really made any adjustments, he’s just finally being rewarded for posting one of the highest hard hit rates in the majors (55.8%). The last time the Mariners faced the Blue Jays, Teoscar Hernández was in the midst of a breakout. His production has slowed down significantly since then. The first two months of the season, he was running a strikeout rate around 22% but it’s jumped up over 30% in the summer months. He managed to post a 130 wRC+ in June because of a .375 BABIP but he cratered in July.

Probable Pitchers

Despite a lengthy injury history that includes a Tommy John surgery almost immediately after being drafted out of high school in 2012, Ryan Borucki has burst into the majors with six solid starts for the Blue Jays. Mostly healthy for the past few years, he jumped from High-A to Triple-A last year and made his major league debut in late June. His calling card is a nasty changeup with tons of arm-side run to it. Opposing batters are whiffing 37.8% of the time they swing at it, fifth highest mark from a left-handed starter. He limits the usage of his changeup almost exclusively to right-handed batters, leaving him a sinker and slider to deal with lefties. Neither pitch is nearly as good as his change, though he hasn’t run a reverse platoon split like you might expect with his repertoire.

During the offseason, Marco Estrada opened up about his struggles last year. He had posted a 3.38 FIP through May but the stress and uncertainty of the upcoming trade deadline derailed the rest of his season. That’s a refreshingly honest look at the ups and downs players deal with throughout the season. This year, Estrada has been plagued by a completely different set of problems. He’s lost the feel for his changeup at times, which means he’s had to lean on his four-seam fastball more often. That’s not ideal since his fastball is so home run prone. He needs both pitches working to really survive. With an ineffective changeup, his strikeout rate has also dropped to the lowest it’s been since his rookie year in 2008.

Remember Sam Gaviglio? One of the 40 pitchers the Mariners threw out there last season, he’s bounced around the league the past year, from the Mariners to the Royals and now to the Blue Jays. But in Toronto, he’s actually found some sustained success. He’s pushed is strikeout rate up to 20.9% and lowered his walk rate to 7.5%. Most of that is due to a focus on his slider as his primary out pitch. Even though it works well with his sinker, his raw stuff is still rather mediocre. Opposing batters have hit his sinker extremely hard, launching nine home runs off the pitch. His changeup and curveball just aren’t good enough to hold left-handed batters at bay so they’re sitting on his sinker and crushing it. So despite the improved strikeout-to-walk ratio helping him shave a full run off his FIP, he’s seen his ERA jump up over five.

The Big Picture:

After struggling to score runs in Colorado, the Athletics exploded for 24 runs in their three-game sweep against the Blue Jays. They’re off today and will host the Tigers over the weekend. The Astros travel to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers for three interleague games.