Hot Shots: Mariners vs. Reds Series Preview
The Mariners play host to the young and dynamic Reds this week.
Thus far the Seattle Mariners have employed a strategy of more or less embodying the philosophy “other than that Mrs. Lincoln how did you enjoy the play?” 6-10 is a familiar number for a football fan, at least prior to the NFL’s ever-hungry expansion of their product. In my estimation, the Mariners could easily be better, but they have felt even worse. Now to town comes a young club powering through suspensions and injuries to a hot start in the Cincinnati Reds.
Cincy has followed a similar model to the Mariners themselves towards their roster construction. Their pitching is largely homegrown top prospects, while their lineup is headlined by a top international signee, a couple draft picks, and many trades. Like Seattle, Cincinnati is unfortunately saddled with an uncompetitive ownership group, leaving their roster highly fragile and dependent on developing stars exclusively, fleshing the roster out with minor additions in free agency and gambling on longshot upside over spending more for better odds.
These colors do run. The Reds are a speedy crew who lead MLB in stolen bases and have put up quality offense in spite of the injuries to INF Matt McLain and OF TJ Friedl, as well as the 80-game PED suspension to INF Noelvi Marte (a longtime Mariners top prospect who was notably the centerpiece to acquire RHP Luis Castillo). Cold starts for veterans Jonathan India and Jeimer Candelario have been mitigated by infernos from Spencer Streer and Elly De La Cruz. Jake Fraley has also been on a tear, though the one-time Norse god of walks has traded in his free passes this spring for a BABIP of .538 in the early going.
Probable Pitchers
After being traded from the A’s to the Yankees at the 2022 trade deadline, Frankie Montas wound up making just eight starts and one relief appearance for New York thanks to a shoulder injury that wiped out nearly all of his season last year. He signed a one-year deal with the Reds this offseason and should provide some veteran leadership for this young pitching staff. So far, his fastball velocity is down about two miles per hour from its peak back in 2022 and he’s lost some ride on the pitch as a result. He’s still relying heavily on his splitter which is as effective as it’s ever been.
The first thing you’ll notice about Hunter Greene is his fastball velocity which is among the highest in baseball, regularly sitting in the triple-digits. The problem is that the shape of his heater isn’t necessarily conducive to earning huge amounts of swings-and-misses given its velocity. His best pitch is his slider which runs a whiff rate of nearly 40%. He’s dabbled with a changeup as a third pitch but has ditched that in favor of a new splitter and curveball this year. His four-seamer and slider are good enough to survive as a foundation, but adding those two additional pitches could raise his ceiling and ability to work deeper into games.
Andrew Abbott raced through the Reds farm system after being drafted in the second round of the 2021 draft. He struck out more than 35% of the batters he faced during his minor league career. Significant improvement of his command was the real turning point in his development. In college, he was mostly deployed as a reliever to mitigate his wildness, but he’s managed to hone his ability to locate in the strike zone and has raised his ceiling as a starter as a result. He’s pretty heavily reliant on his four-seam fastball, throwing that pitch more than half the time. He has a pair of decent breaking balls and a good changeup to keep right-handed batters at bay.
The Big Picture:
Two games back. They are only two games back. All of this gnashing of teeth and ultimately where we are left is watching them just two games back of the division lead. Last weekend’s series win against the Rangers seems like it could be a turning point for the Astros. They erupted for a ton of runs on Saturday and Sunday and head into a huge series against the Braves this week with some momentum. Despite losing back-to-back series, the Rangers still sit in first place in the division and will travel to Detroit this week.