Game 25 - Mariners control the AL West
The Mariners did not play particularly well against the Rangers on Thursday, but the series win counts all the same.
The Mariners won 4-3 in the series finale in Texas. Theyāve now won seven of their last nine and lead the AL West by a half game over the Rangers and six-and-a-half games over the last place Astros.
But the Mariners did not hit well on Thursday. They swung at almost half the pitches they saw out of the zone, and their heart swing index ranked in the bottom 5% of all team games in MLB this year. They struck out 11 times and didnāt draw a single walk. In fact, they did not have a single base runner after the fifth inning.
Their team wRC+ fell below average, and they reclaimed the top spot on the MLB strikeout leaderboard.
The one thing the Mariners did do well on Thursday was hit a pair of timely home runs.
The first came from Ty France in the top of the first. He turned around a fastball and drove it 101 mph into the right field seats. It was his first home run of the season and, the first since his swing overhaul.
Iām often a bit skeptical of the Driveline swing changers. I certainly respect the willingness to get better, and Driveline seems like a great place to do so. But itās the modern twist on the āBest Shape Of My Lifeā narrative that weāve heard for decades. Still, there might be something to it for France. By the underlying metrics, France has been the Mariners best regular hitter. Heās made good swing decisions, and heās hit the ball hard and at good angles with a 50% hard hit rate, 47.5%(!!!) sweet spot rate, and .425 xwOBAcon. He hasnāt combined them often enough with just a 5.7% barrel rate, and heās still whiffing a tad too much. But overall Iām more inclined to believe his .354 xwOBA than his .305 wOBA. It seems like for France this year itāll be a matter of consistency and staying healthy (crucially, heās yet to be hit by a pitch).
The second timely home run came from Luis UrĆas who caught a heart fastball in the fifth and hit a 103 mph, two-run homer into the seats in left. It was Uriasā second of the year, and all five of his hits so far have been for extra bases. His season wRC+ is up to 136 (despite striking out nearly 40% of the time).
One player who struggled (again) was Mitch Garver. Heās now hitless in his last 17 plate appearances with seven strikeouts. I assume heāll figure it out by the summer, if not sooner, but itās undeniably been a slow start for him. Iāll buy a bit into the narrative that heās still settling in. He talked on Tuesday after getting his World Series ring about the opportunity to finally turn the page.
āI didnāt have a chance to really celebrate a World Series because when the parade was over, I was a free agent and I was looking for a job,ā Garver said. āWe ended up signing with Seattle, and we bought a house, we had a baby and like all these things happened so quickly. And now I have a chance to get the ring and itāll be a good opportunity to relive what we were able to accomplish, but also move on.ā
Everyone else is dealing with things, too, of course. France just had a kid, and Cal Raleigh basically won Tuesdayās game for the Mariners with an exploded tooth or something. But Garver is in a new place with a new family learning a new system and playing (technically) a new positionāitās not unrealistic to think there could be some downward effect on performance.
On the other hand, Garver is now 33āthe age where swing speeds start to rapidly decline. And heās also now making poor swing decisions. He ranks in the bottom 20% of the league by my heart swing index, which is a sharp divergence from his historically excellent approach. Colin OāKeefe thoughtfully pointed out on Friday that the two could be related.
ā¦ if your swing is slow and/or inefficientāor just a tick slower than it used to beāthe time you have to recognize a pitch before you gear up to swing is reduced. Every millisecond earlier you have to swing is a millisecond you didnāt have to evaluate whether or not you even should.
We donāt know if thatās the case for him yet since full data isnāt publicly available, but itās something to consider. I also wonder if heās still dealing with back issues that sidelined him in the first series. Weāll see what adjustments he makes in May. Iām still more likely for now to believe heās the career 125ish wRC+ guy than the 55 wRC+ heās posted this year.
Luis Castillo pitched just OK. His velocity was up, and his stuff looked good, generating a 36% whiff rate. In fact, he now leads MLB in total whiffs. But as has been the case with Castillo at times this year, he struggled to put Rangers batters away after working ahead in counts. To their credit, the Rangers took some good pitches and made him work. But Castilloās command looked sporadic, and he too often left pitches over the plateāthe Rangers hit two home runs and posted a 53% hard hit rate against him. Castillo did look like he figured something out later in the game and was able to get through six innings with limited damage overall.
J.P. Crawford officially landed on the injured list on Thursday with an oblique strain. Dylan Moore seems the likely beneficiary and should assume a larger role. Moore has looked good at the plate this year, committing more than half his swings to heart pitches. He also has a 47% sweet spot rate and 44% hard hit rate. Moore has mostly done this against lefties, and weāll have to see if he can carry it over against righties as well. Itā possible those plate appearances against righties will shift to Leo Rivas, who was called up for Crawford. But Scott Servais has talked about playing the hot hand, and right now thatās Moore.
The Mariners escape Texas with a series win. I wasnāt fully encouraged with how they played, especially at the plate Wednesday and Thursday. But those wins (and Rangers losses) are now banked. The division goes through Texas somewhere, and this was a great first step toward winning the AL West.
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