Ed. note: While his main sport sorts out its labor troubles, Shutdown Corner's Doug Farrar headed out to Safeco Field this week for a nice little diversion from all the lockout talk. Please welcome him aboard.
SEATTLE — The Seattle Mariners came into June with the fourth-lowest runs scored (241), the third-fewest home runs (38), the third-fewest total bases (757), the lowest batting average (.226), and the lowest OPS (.325) in the major leagues. But they also went into the month with a 28-26 record, just a half-game behind the Texas Rangers in the AL West.
How are they doing it? Almost entirely with pitching, and in a way that resembles the dead-ball era more than what you might expect to see today. While the M's are pathetic on the offensive side of things, they're lighting it up from a pitching perspective. Riding a 12-3 record in their last 15 games going into Wednesday's afternoon tilt against the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle's pitchers put up a 2.22 ERA and six saves. Their May ERA, a major-league best 2.82, was more than a run below April's 3.95.
While Felix Hernandez is the franchise pitcher, the buzz around the club in Seattle has as much to do with rookie Michael Pineda. Though he struggled (in a relative sense) in his previous outing, giving up three runs and five walks in five innings to the New York Yankees on May 27, this 6-foot-7, 260-pound native of the Dominican Republic has given the M's hope for that most valuable of commodities — a pitching rotation with a legitimate No. 1 and No. 1a starter.
Learning to fly: Pineda came into Wednesday's game with the eighth-best ERA (2.42) and tied for the sixth-best WHIP (0.98) in the American League. Then he only improved his season numbers with a seven-inning gem in which he gave up one run, struck out seven, gave up six hits (three on broken bats), and allowed just one runner to second base outside of the dinger. Pineda left with a 1-1 tie, and when reliever Jamey Wright gave up a homer to Adam Jones in the eighth, that was enough for a 2-1 win for the Orioles. Thus, the M's fell to 28-27, losing a game in the standings to the Rangers in the process.
Pineda, of course, certainly wasn't the problem.
"What's not to like? He's got good command for a young guy," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said after the game. "They tell me he's grown four or five inches. I hope he doesn't grow any more, but he's special. He has a chance to be really good. He can attack you with a fastball, and not many people can do that anymore in the American League."
Pineda threw a lot of off-speed stuff early against the O's, ranging from 81 to 90 miles per hour, as opposed to a higher percentage of the upper-90s fastballs that have had major league hitters swinging late and looking sorry, and he gave up J.J. Hardy's third home run of the year (two of them came off of Pineda). But Pineda then corked off a beauty to end the second inning, hitting the inside zone and forcing third baseman Mark Reynolds to back out of the way at the same pitch that struck him out looking. The breaking stuff started to get nastier in the third inning, and that's what Pineda's journey must be about now — learning to match his rare natural gifts with the ability to shake off the inevitable shellackings that every major league pitcher encounters.
"I think you just have to stay consistent with your actions," Wedge told me when I asked how a young pitcher is handled after a relative struggle. "You don't work up and down per performance. You have to be consistent with your conversations and with your actions. Obviously whether it's a good outing, or a little bit less than that, you're still going to learn a great deal from that, and you're going to go through some things that you need to go through."
Wedge also told me that Pineda's issues against the Yankees weren't necessarily mechanical.
"He's been pretty consistent," he said. "It's more than that — it's the mindset, the emotion, and everything that goes along with being a big-league baseball pitcher. I feel like he's done a tremendous job with all of that.
"When you talk about young players, whether it's on the hitting side or the pitching side, and you have opportunities like that, it's a fine line. Ultimately, you're still looking for them to develop and go through things to make them that much better in the next opportunity."
Pineda is certainly learning and adjusting. When he faced Hardy again in the fourth, he struck him out with the kind of inside heat (a 96-mile per hour fastball that he can locate consistently) for which many pitchers would give their eye teeth. Mixing in a heavy slider as the game went on, Pineda made Reynolds look even more helpless the second time around. He went totally slo-mo in the sixth, befuddling first baseman Nick Markakis with a dropping changeup that came in at about 80 miles per hour on a 1-1 pitch.
Where you see the occasional breakdowns is in the little things that separate the all-timers from the "merely great." There are times when Pineda will let a hitter he dominates off the hook, as he did with Reynolds the third time around, losing him to a walk after building up a full count. Problem solved, though, when he ended that inning with a 96-mile per hour fastball to embarrass shortstop Robert Andino.
Pineda, who is still struggling with his English but is making an admirable effort, said that the main concern he had in the follow-up was keeping the ball down. It definitely worked — he had the off-speed stuff going especially well, tailing off against the Orioles.
"With my pitches today, my change-up was pretty good," Pineda said. "I threw a lot of them today, and it was pretty good."
But when it comes to hitting ... Oh, how weak is the Mariners' mortal frame.
Slumbering lumber: At a bar called Norm's Eatery and Ale House in Seattle, there's a "Getting Figgy With It" promotion every Monday, in which patrons can purchase a pint of draft Widmer beer for the current batting average of third baseman Chone Figgins. Last Monday, those patrons could imbibe for $1.90 per pint; for that was where Figgins' average had dropped. It is perhaps the only rewarding aspect to a season in which Figgins would have to go on an epic tear to get near the Mendoza line. Figgins has become the mascot of sorts for a team that struggles mightily to get any offense going; no team has won more one-run games than Seattle's 13, and 29 of their 55 games have been decided by two or fewer runs. It's a slippery slope for any pitching staff, no matter how talented.
Before Wednesday's game, Wedge said that he doesn't partition the progress into weekly or monthly milestones. "I really don't categorize anything — I just look at the now, and here, and ultimately, where we want to go," he said. "But I'm really impressed with the way these guys are playing together as a team. I've loved their fight and grit from day one— their energy, and the way they're going about playing, which is the way they should go about it. Those are the things I focus on."
Wedge's focus has been impressive through an April that ended with a 13-15 record, and a mid-May that bottomed out on the 17th with a 17-24 record. There have been personnel issues — second baseman Jack Wilson took himself out of a game in early April because he wasn't happy with his two-error performance, the ongoing soap opera created by outfielder Milton Bradley was finally and mercifully brought to an end when Bradley was released on May 16, and closer Brandon League had a brutal stretch of four losses in the last at-bat in a six-day stretch in early May.
Now, Wedge must contend with the problem presented by Figgins. What do you do when you have a hitter who has proven to be incapable of hitting — at least in the near term — when he has two years and $18 million left on a contract he signed in Dec. 2009? Wedge sat him down Tuesday and Wednesday, hoping that he'll get his head straight, but it's certainly been a challenge.
The greater challenge will be in maintaining that equilibrium going forward with such an unbalanced team. But with Felix Hernandez taking the mound Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Rays, Wedge is virtually assured one more high-quality start.
Will his hitters be able to do anything with it?
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