There’s one thing called ‘prospect fatigue’, where sometimes, as a prospect – particularly a high school pitcher, a particularly slow-developing demographic – has been for some time, it has prospect stock negatively affects. Sheffield’s began to slip when he was seen as spending enough to be treated to the Mariners in the James Paxton trade, because of course if the Yankees do not want it, it’s trash, and took another hit when the Mariners Sheff from the Bouncy moved Ball Funland from Triple-A and sent him to Double-A Arkansas, where he could develop alongside other pitching prospect and BFF Justin Dunn. Even when he was set to join the rotation late last season, national baseball media treated Sheffield as one whose star had set. Today, when he earned his first MLB win, Sheffield reminded everyone that not only is his career young – he has fewer MLB innings than he threw at Triple-A last year – but that’s his chronological age; he is still young enough to be with his parents’ health insurance,
If you’ve a fan of pitching duels, and more specifically a fan of sliders, this game was tailor-made in baseball heaven for you, and you should not have to run to your nearest MLB TV broadcast and it revisited in all its glory.
German Marquez was very good for the Rockies, and mixed plus speed with a nasty curve which he got a better feel for when the game wore on. There were a few at-bats he tracked down to the outer edge of the zone in the mid-90s that really visually reinforced why hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do. However, he made one mistake pitch to Dylan Moore, and Dylan Moore, El Gigante de Yorba Linda, made Márquez pay:
That was a two-run shot, as JP Crawford, who makes himself stay at home at the top of the lineup, was on base with a single. The Mariners hunters took the approach of being aggressive early in scores on Márquez, and tried to get to the fastball before he had a chance to break out the annoying seconds, and although it worked for Moore here, Márquez went to the lock after he, to the face at least until the sixth inning, clears of all mistakes – both for Joe Hudson, of all things, a single and a walk – with double plays.
On the other hand, Justus Sheffield was even sharper than Márquez. Sheff was able to control his fastball, which set his wipeout slider to – well, wipe people out. One of Sheffield’s lone mistakes on the day was, after watching the first two fighters in the match for easy flyouts, going into a lengthy battle with a god-tier Charlie Blackmon, causing a fastball too much of the record could catch Blackmon turning around for a double, for Charlie Blackmon. However, Justus has cleared his own mess on the following batter, Matt Kemp, by breaking out his slider for safety tires:
The shift was cruel today; Sheffield tossed it between 78-84 mph per day depending on location and counting, and sometimes used it to erase banners away, as he does here, and other times he used to pipe different parts of the zone at different speeds. He actually knocked out Kemp three times, twice on that backfoot shift and once on this one, at 81 over the zone:
Even more impressively, Sheffield ran no one, never came to a count of three balls and worked consistently past fielders. He even used his change a few times, and got Garrett Hampson to fly out weak on it. The one inning where Sheff got into a bit of hot water was the fourth, when the unstoppable Charlie Blackmon shot a line-drive just out of Dee Gordon’s reach. Sheff nailed Kemp with that back slider, but then David Dahl put a nice little inside-out swing on a slider to put rounds on first and third. Sheffield got Isan Diaz to pop on the infield on a slide up in the zone, then pulled him out of his jam with his fifth strikeout of the day:
The one quibble is that Sheff, with his seven strikeouts, was on 91 ropes by the sixth, and pitched a career-high tie for himself in innings. That meant it was time for everyone’s least favorite game, Mariners Bullpen Roulette. Today it was Erik Swanson’s first acquaintance, which is a minigame in itself: will it be the good Erik Swanson, or a constant store of North Dakota’s favorite treat, Swanson’s Meatballs? Surprise! It was Good Swanson who painted 97 on black for two strikes in his inning of work.
Maybe because they realize they need to do more to stick to Sheffield’s first win in the Premier League, the Mariners took advantage of some Rockies defensive mistakes in the bottom of the seventh. Kyle Lewis took advantage of Nolan Arenado’s day to place an infield single in the third baseline, and then Kyle Seager should have hit a GIDP, but Owings bubbled it once, twice, three times queen, and then increased his mistake by throwing it away, putting runners on second and third without outs. Vogey then grounded out, but Evan White, with two strikeouts a day, hit the first pitch of Márquez, a high slider that caught too much of the plate. White missed a three-foot bomb with straight feet – the ball came from his ball at 103.8 mph, the second-hardest hit of the game, with an xBA of .810 – but it was enough to get Lewis in the third to ride. Tim Lopes followed with an RBI single on a breaking ball that left Márquez, clearly losing some of his sense at this point, in the middle of the plate, putting an RBI single in the center and then the second base on it. Dee Gordon followed with an RBI single of his own, scoring Lopes and extending the lead to 5-0.
Unfortunately, bullpen roulette gives it up and takes it, and today’s bullpenning was started by Dan Altavilla, who got two quick outs and then allowed a walk, stolen base, and RBI single to Trevor Story to put Colorado on the board. . Blackmon ran then, and Kemp, very happy to see a pitcher who did not become the name Justus Sheffield, singled home Story. This prompted Scott Servais to go to his cabinet to mark “Break Glass In Case of Bullpenning” and release the TWilly, which gave a single to David Dahl, breaking the score at an uncomfortably close 5-3, but then ruined pinch-hitter Daniel Murphy’s shit on this wicked fastball:
The Mariners had a chance to add when the Rockies brought in Tyler Kinley, a clearly inferior Tyler, who loaded the bases with two walks and a hit, but the Mariners were unable to capitalize due to a bad record appearance by Vogelbach (sweet) and a solid but ultimately fruitless record appearance by Evan White, which did not fail! Small victories. That brought the Superior Tyler back for a real save situation, and he muddled through the last of the Rockies 1-2-3 with two more strikeouts, including a nasty backfoot slider of his own to Ryan McMahon and a running fastball that Chris Owings silently helpless. And with that, the Mariners hit Justus Sheffield’s first MLB win. Let’s hope it’s the first of many.
