Series Preview: Mariners (19-22) at Giants (21-21)

Wildfire smoke? It’s a bummer! The end of summer and the start of school, Zoom, home, or otherwise? Also not great! Well let me soothe any upset feelings you may have, reader. The Seattle Mariners are charging up in the wild card race, sitting just two whole games back from the Yankees and Astros, and they get to face a brand new fun team in the San Francisco Giants today. The Giants are also a surprise this year: they’ve made a lot of noise in the surprisingly crowded NL West race and are looking to snag a playoff spot in (checks notes) an even year. Oh dear.

Just two games in this series and we aren’t particularly favored in either, which is likely in large part due to facing the weakest part of our rotation. However, while projection systems may not like Ljay and Nicky Marge, it’s undeniable that they have (in a small sample) performed. If they can keep that up, we should look a good bit better than the odds in these games.

Of course, that will also require cooling down a red-hot Giants lineup, which has thumped its way through the season to date. Like the Mariners, since the Giants weren’t really planning to contend this year (OR WERE THEY?! - Farhan Zaidi), they did the baseball equivalent of just ignoring your garden bed for two months from April to June. You might get a watermelon here and there by chance but mostly it’s just a mess. While the offense has flourished, the pitching staff has struggled a bit, particularly the bullpen. The result is a beautiful mess that might prove to be just enough to compete in the National League, but a mess none-the-less.

Here’s the engine that drives the Giants’ success. Mike Yastrzemski has a nice name, of course, and took til he was 28 to break into the majors, which might lead you to believe he’s more of a journeyman. Not so: in 596 career PA he has a 134 wRC+, and while his defense is iffy, that sort of hitting covers a lot of ills. Donovan Solano, meanwhile, was a journeyman, but since departing the East Coast he has remade himself into something that sure looks like a real good big-league player over the last two season with the Giants. This lineup is really filled with surprises top to bottom, whether it’s Brandon Belt’s stretch as the literal hottest hitter in baseball or Evan Longoria’s resurgence that gives him (he’s still just 34!) a solid case at the Hall of Fame someday if he can stretch a few more years out of his career.

Probable Pitchers

Stuff+ Explainer

Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

Logan Webb had a rough and tumble start to his professional career. He lost a year of development after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2016 and lost even more development time after a PED suspension in early 2019. Despite those setbacks, Webb has zoomed through the Giants organization and reached the majors last year, having pitched just seven innings above Double-A. He acquitted himself well in just under 40 MLB innings last year, sporting a 4.12 FIP that was marred by a 5.22 ERA. In nearly the same amount of innings this year, his peripherals all look nearly identical but he’s been able to drop his FIP and ERA by half a run by suppressing his home run rate.

Tyler Anderson escaped the altitude of Colorado for the marine layer of San Francisco but his results really haven’t improved. He’s allowed far fewer home runs while pitching at sea level, but a career low strikeout rate has erased any gains he’s seen on batted ball outcomes. He’s relying on his changeup far more often this year, and it has a decent whiff rate, so the drop in strikeouts is a little baffling. But the improvement in batted ball profile is definitely real and something he can lean into now that he doesn’t have to worry about fly balls leaving the park at ridiculous rates. He’s running one of the highest popup rates in baseball this year.

The Big Picture:

The AL West

WILD CARD STANDINGS!

Absolutely wild that we’ve gone from including draft rankings to including wild card standings. 2020! The Astros have had a rough year generally and a lot of rough injury luck. Lance McCullers hit the IL for them over the weekend, and they face Oakland twice today with no starter yet announced for game 2. All of that means if Seattle takes care of business, they could sit half a game back by the time the clock strikes midnight tonight. I don’t know what anything means any more. I don’t know what to do with my hands. Let’s just enjoy the ride wherever it goes.