Skating By: Mariners at Rays Series Preview

The Mariners continue their tour of Florida stadiums with a three-game series in Tampa Bay.

It has not been a good road trip for the Mariners. After dropping a series at Cleveland (understandable), the Mariners then dropped a series against the Marlins (unconscionable). They’ll need a strong showing against the Rays to salvage something from this miserable road trip, but the team’s laughable home-road splits became less quirkily funny and more uncomfortably bad on this road trip, as the Astros and Rangers dealt with their own business and have both about halved the Mariners’ division lead over the past week. Not great, Bobs! That the Mariners aren’t favored to win a single one of these games gives you an idea of how little projection systems buy in to the 2024 Mariners, even if they have the statistical edge in several major categories.

After many years of being near or atop the AL East, the Rays find themselves in unfamiliar territory, slumming it at the bottom of the division, saved from last place only by the deeply disappointing Blue Jays. It’s not so much that the Rays are terrible — they’re only a couple games under .500, despite suffering a multitude of injuries to their pitching staff while also missing a few of their positional regulars — but the rest of the division is so good this year, there’s essentially no wiggle room for the Rays to make any kind of mistakes. Still, don’t let the fact that Tampa Bay is near the bottom of their division lull you into a false sense of security; their 38-40 record is exactly the same as the Astros, who currently hold second place in the AL West.

The Rays were a team that seemed to match up well for the Mariners as trade partners over the off-season for Seattle to get some offensive help, but so far, the most intriguing names over the off-season have largely been a disappointment. Yandy Díaz apparently used up all the hits in his bat last year, falling off hard after a career season in 2023, although he’s been trending up lately. José Siri’s power has largely gone missing, making that 35% strikeout rate less tenable. Brandon Lowe has been hurt most of the season, putting the Rays in perilous danger of having no Lowes on their roster, and Josh Lowe has taken a step back after his strong 2023. Probably the biggest disappointment is Randy Arozarena, posting career-worst numbers while battling a hamstring issue, although he appears to be turning things around after a brutal early stretch to the season. The steadiest hand in the Rays lineup has been Isaac Paredes, who continues to chug along with his simple but effective approach of never striking out and pulling the ball over half the time. Outside of Paredes, though, the Rays have struggled with offense just like the 2024 Mariners. The difference is that Rays fans are used to seeing teams who can produce offensively; see just how poorly this team stacks up to Rays teams of the past thanks to our friends at DRays Bay.

Probable Pitchers

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Taj Bradley was the Rays top pitching prospect last year and made his major league debut pretty quickly after the start of the season. His rookie campaign was full of highs and lows, but the full measure of his efforts amounted to a pretty lackluster pitching line. The effectiveness of his fastball is hard to decipher; it has an elite amount of ride which helps him generate plenty of swings and misses with the pitch, but batters are easily able to crush the pitch if it catches too much of the zone. One of the keys to his development is figuring out which of his secondary pitches he can turn to to lessen his reliance on his heater. So far, it’s been his splitter that’s seen the most positive development this year.

For the first five years of his big league career, Zack Littell was cast as a pretty unremarkable long reliever for the Twins and Giants. He didn’t have the raw stuff to really stand out as a high-leverage reliever and didn’t have a deep enough repertoire to make it as a starter. The Rays picked him up off the trash heap in May of last year, had him add a sinker and sweeper to his pitch mix and increase the usage of his splitter, all at the expense of his mediocre four-seamer. By July, he was working as an opener and bulk reliever and was moved to the starting rotation full-time in August. Across 11 starts through the end of the season, he posted a 3.38 ERA with a 4.04 FIP with an elite 9.40 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He’s carried that success into this year and has been a stabilizing member of a beat up Rays rotation.

Ryan Pepiot was one of the headlining prospects the Rays received in the big Tyler Glasnow trade during the offseason. He had bounced between the majors and the minors and the rotation and the bullpen as a member of the Dodgers organization, but he’s been given the chance to fully develop as a starter with Tampa Bay. Beyond a decent fastball and beautiful changeup, he needed to develop a third or fourth pitch to give him another weapon to effectively work as a starter. He added a hard slider to his repertoire late last year and has increased the usage of that pitch to 22% this year. He’s also dabbled with a cutter and curveball at points this season, but neither has really stuck yet.

The Big Picture:

The Mariners remain atop the AL West despite their very poor showing on this road trip so far, although the margins have tightened considerably. Houston is on a five-game win streak, and the Rangers have won four in a row. The Astros also get to kick around the Rockies for a series before matching up with the Gay Grimace Mets, so there’s a good chance they could narrow that lead even further if the Mariners continue to show the same offensive ineptitude they have so far on this road series. At least the Rangers have a tougher slate ahead: they go on the road to play first the Brewers, then the Orioles. The Angels and A’s fight it out this week to see who gets bottom-dwelling privileges in the AL West.