Game 10 - Hancock struggles despite whiffs
Emerson Hancock set a career high whiff rate, the offense had its best game of the season, and the Mariners still got clobbered 12-4 in Milwaukee on Sunday.
The Brewers really teeād off on Hancock, spraying hard hit after hard hit around the field. Of the 14 batted balls Hancock allowed, eight were harder than 95 mph. In 3 1/3 innings, he gave up 11 hits, including two home runs.
The underlying metrics donāt look as bad as the box score. Hancock filled up the zone with all his pitches and only walked one. Again, he set a career high in whiff rate at 26% and struck out six batters, including four in a row at one point.
But the Brewers had a good plan, and Hancock didnāt adjust. Ryan Divish explained it well:
Baseball players call the attack plan āseeing him up.ā ā¦ Hancockās two best pitches ā the sinking two-seam fastball and changeup ā both have strong movement below the zone just before the plate. So anything that looks even close to being low isnāt a pitch to swing at unless there are two strikes.
āThey had a good approach,ā Hancock said. āI just feel like I didnāt execute that well. What they were trying to do with their approach ā¦ I just didnāt make the adjustments and I just didnāt give us a chance to win.ā
Itās a plan that other teams will emulate against Hancock.
āYouāve got to find a way to still get outs,ā he said. āIāve got to be able to make adjustments. I feel like Iāll get better at kind of recognizing it. And keep going and getting outs.ā
Hancockās status going forward is a bit uncertain. Bryan Woo is working his way back but is unlikely to be available by the next scheduled outing. Divish suggests they could go with a bullpen day or reshuffle to skip the spot with a midweek travel day. Itās also possible they turn to Dallas Kuechel, who pitched five scoreless innings for Tacoma on Sunday.
Or perhaps Hancock will get another shot. He hasnāt shown anything to this point to convince me he deserves a permanent spot in the rotation, but as I said the other day, I donāt think he necessarily looks out of place in MLB. I havenāt moved off that position after Sunday. Letting him have another start, even against a good Cubs lineup, is at least better than a bullpen day. Weāll see what happens.
If and when Hancock goes to Tacoma, Iād like to see him return with velocity that holds up throughout a game. Itās not so much that the velocity completely disappears, but itās just not consistent. He was throwing 94-95 deep into his pitch count on Sunday, which is good. But he mixed that in with 90-91, which is bad.
Hancock four seam velocity over the course of a game.
Itās possible that inconsistency reflects a mechanical issue that needs to be ironed out. If thatās the case, the velocity problem might be fixable, rather than a strict talent deficiency. In bits and pieces, Hancock looks like a Seattle Mariners starting pitcherāhe throws strikes, his stuff moves, and he gets whiffs. Thereās just something a bit off that I canāt place, and the Brewers exposed that on Sunday. Perhaps itās related to the velocity.
Despite Hancock, the Mariners offense was fantastic on Sunday. Donāt let just four runs, eight hits, and one walk fool youāthey were swinging at good pitches, working counts, and making high quality contact. By my own aggregated metric, it was their best game this season, and a top 10% game in MLB. There was a bit of unfortunate sequencing and some at-em balls (.375 xwOBA & .264 standard wOBA), but it was another encouraging sign from an offense that seems to be trending in the right direction.