Streaky catchers – Zunino on fire
Gary Sanchez may be smoking hot in NY, but Mariner Mike Zunino is not far behind and his story is even more unlikely. Gary Sanches is just starting his career, but last year it looked like Zunino was ending his.
Zunino was the 3rd pick in the 2012 draft and was in the majors by 2013 at age 22. He scuffled but in 2014 he slugged 22 home runs and seemed to be the Mariner catcher of the future. However, there were signs of trouble to come. He struck out 158 times in 2014 and those strikeouts proved to be his undoing in 2015. Zunino couldn’t make contact and found himself with an OPS below .600 and a ticket to the minor leagues.
Ove the winter the Mariners hedged their bet on their catcher of the future and signed Chris Iannetta. To prove their point they sent Zunino to the minor leagues to start the 2016 season. Mike had a great April in AAA but trailed off in May and June. With just a few minor league at bats in July, the Mariners recalled Mike and he’s been slugging every since.
Maybe the Mariners do have their catcher of the future after all.
Gary Sanchez doing things never done in pinstripes before
No one can deny that the Yankee’s are baseball’s royalty with a long successful storied history that began when Babe Ruth first donned those pinstripes.
Yet in that long history, no Yankee has ever done what Gary Sanchez has done this month. Last night Sanchez slugged his 9th home in only his 18th game thus becoming the first Yankee to ever hit nine home runs in their first 21 games.
Gary Sanchez, c, Yankees. Sanchez hit his ninth homer in 18 games this month as the Yankees beat Seattle 5-0 on Wednesday. Sanchez’s nine homers are the most ever for a Yankee in his first 21 games.
He has a wRC+ of 261.
All this from a guy with a fairly pedestrian minor league career
After the Rich Hill debut, which column will he fall into, Greg Maddux or Brad Penny?
When it comes to tradeline debuts Brad Penny is the one that always comes to my mind for several reasons. When DePodesta traded for Penny in 2004 it was a huge gamble as he traded the most popular player on the Dodgers (Paul LoDuca) without securing a proper backup catcher when Charles Johnson decided he didn’t want to play for the Dodgers. That left the young David Ross as the full-time catcher. The general thought was that Penny was going to be flipped for Randy Johnson but that part of the trade never happened.
Brad Penny made Depodesta look good by hurling a two-hitter on Aug 3rd, 2004 in his debut and going eight innings for the win. For a moment it looked like Depodesta had acquired the pitcher the Dodgers needed to help them in October. That moment didn’t last long because Penny would get hurt in his next start and only pitch 3 innings for the Dodgers the rest of the year.
Greg Maddux had his own memorable debut on August 3rd, 2006 by pitching a six-inning no-hitter. The cost for Maddux had been cheap enough with Cesar Izturis going to the Cubs. Maddux would go on to have an effective final two months with the Dodgers making 12 starts, and even pitch one lousy game in the postseason.
Notice that both of those debuts were on August 3rd, which makes sense given the players were acquired at the trading deadline of 7/31 and were needed ASAP to help the rotation.
Even though Dodger fans had to wait until August 24th, Rich Hill can now join Penny and Maddux with a memorable debut after his six shutout innings last night.
The question now remains which column does Hill end up in? The Penny column or the Maddux column?
That was worth waiting for
Rich Hill’s long-delayed debut for the Dodgers turned out to be an exceptional debut, as Hill blanked the Giants for six innings. That is not a misprint, a Dodger pitcher got 18 outs that was not a rookie. Very impressive for a guy who hadn’t pitched an inning in any game since July 7th.
Justin Turner continued his Mike Schmidt imitation and blasted his 24th home run for the only run of the game.
Baez, Libby, Blanton, and Jansen finished off the spiraling Giants, and that is how you win a game 1 – 0.
Josh Reddick continued his impressive hitting picking up three more hitless at-bats.
Adrian Gonzalez did not drive in any runs thus ending his quest to tie or break Shawn Green’s 14 RBI in three games, but he did collect a hit to continue his hitting streak to 17 games.
Corey Seager did not get a hit, and his 14 game hitting streak has come to an end.
Hill is the fourth pitcher this year to pitch 6.0 or more scoreless innings in his Dodger debut, joining Scott Kazmir (6.0 IP, April 5 at SD), Kenta Maeda(6.0 IP, April 6 at SD) and Bud Norris (6.0 IP, July 1 vs. COL).
When Kenley Jansen struck out the final two batters of the game he tied Jim Brewer’s franchise record for strikeouts as a reliever with 604 career Ks.
Dodgers go at Giants with short bench
Rich Hill needed to be activated and they conveniently used Rob Segedin paternity leave as the lever for getting Hill onto the rotation. In so doing they have shorted their bench which now consists of four players and one of those is the backup catcher who rarely gets used outside of catching.
This leaves the Dodgers Kike Hernandez, Andrew Toles, Charlie Culberson, and the aforementioned A.J. Ellis to man the Dodger bench.
Have to imagine a few pitchers will hit for themselves tonight even if they don’t remain in the game, and we will probably see a pitcher on the roster used as a pinch runner if the game is close.
That is right, Andrew Toles will be sitting today after hitting home runs on Monday and Tuesday in favor of the red hot Josh Reddick.
I’m sure that will work out, everything Dave Roberts seems to do somehow works out.
Adrian Gonzalez on a RBI mission
Gonzalez has driven in 11 runs over the last two games. Going into tonight’s game he’ll be trying to become the 7th LAD player to drive in at least three runs in three straight games. Strangely enough Andrew Toles will be trying to accomplish the same thing even though Toles has only driven in three runs per game.
The last player to drive in three runs in three straight games was James Loney, the other five were:
| Name | Strk Start | End | Games | HR | RBI ▾ |
| Ron Cey | 4/23/1977 | 4/25/1977 | 3 | 4 | 12 |
| Frank Howard | 7/27/1962 | 7/29/1962 | 3 | 3 | 12 |
| Eric Karros | 6/2/2002 | 6/4/2002 | 3 | 1 | 10 |
| Dusty Baker | 7/11/1983 | 7/13/1983 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| James Loney | 9/16/2011 | 9/18/2011 | 3 | 2 | 9 |
What is great about Adrian is that his 11 RBI would give him more than anyone but Howard and Cey over a three-game period and he did it in two games.
But Shawn Green is the king of RBI over a three-game span. At least he is the king I found, if someone has more than 14 over a three-game span please be sure to correct me.
Shawn Green drove in seven runs the day he hit four home runs. He then drove in one run the next day giving him eight in two games. He followed that up with six RBI, so over a three-game span, Shawn Green drove in 14 runs. If Adrian can drive in three runs today, he can at least tie Shawn Green for most runs driven in over a three-game span.
Add Walker Buehler near the top of the plethora of Dodger pitching prospects
The Dodgers number one pick of 2015 pitched his first professional game last night and everyone came away raving about his stuff. He only pitched two innings but his stuff showed why the Dodgers didn’t shy away from making him their top selection last year even with the arm concerns.
Baseball America checks in on Walker Buehler:
Walker Buehler, rhp, Dodgers. The former Vanderbilt star had Tommy John surgery shortly after the Dodgers made him the 24th overall pick in 2015. He got back on a mound in earnest on Tuesday, making his pro debut in the Rookie-level AZL against the White Sox. Buehler struck out three in two scoreless innings, and according to BA’s Bill Mitchell, who was on hand, Buehler’s fastball ranged 95-97 mph with a cutter in the low 90s and a tight curveball with plenty of spin. With the trade of Grant Holmes, Jharel Cotton and Frankie Montas to Oakland, Buehler could be looked at as the Dodgers’ No. 2 pitching prospect behind Jose De Leon, with Julio Urias graduating.
Dodger fans have already gotten a good luck at the future with 20-year-old Julio Urias and the future could be even brighter with at least three top arms still in the system. Jose De Leon is currently top dog but it doesn’t take much imagination to foresee that either Yadier Alveraz or Walker Buehler might have more upside than the talented De Leon.
Sometimes you hear the minor league mantra “grow the pitchers sign the hitters” or maybe the mantra is “grow the hitters sign the pitchers” but in either case, the Dodger farm system is doing very well at growing both.
Corey Seager is no top five MVP candidate
A few weeks ago I was wondering if Corey Seager could pull off a Fred Lynn and win not only the Rookie of the Year but also the MVP. He had a compelling case at the time but I don’t think many were taking the idea seriously, at best he was considered a top-five candidate. Since that column, Seager has been on fire and in my opinion is neck and neck with Kris Bryant for the MVP award.
The problem is that as hot as Seager has been Kris Bryant is just as hot. The problem for Kris Bryant is that his team is going to coast to the NL Central Division and whatever he does going forward is just padding stats, but whatever Cory does could have a direct correlation to how the Dodgers get into the postseason.
What everyone is noticing is that Corey Seager as a rookie is the main cog in the Dodger offensive explosion. He’s in the middle of everything that is good right now. As the Dodger rotation continues to falter, it has been the Dodger offense that has shoved their way into first place, and no one has done more of the shoving than Corey Seager.
As Joe Davis and Orel noted the other night, not only does Corey Seager have the counting stats the old school MVP voters love such as high batting average, he has the stats that the sabermetrics school drools over. At this point, he’s lock in step with Kris Bryant in fWAR. And he’s on a first place team that is overcoming all sorts of adversity.
AND HE”S A SHORTSTOP
And he’s getting better
His current run is ridiculous, let us look at how ridiculous he has been:
Corey is 29 for 57 with four doubles, three home runs and has a triple stat line of .509 | .556 | .737.
Other notable offensive numbers:
- For the month of August Corey has an OPS of 1.054
- Since May he has not had an OPS below .890
- He’s 3rd in the league in BA at .324
- He’s 10th in the league Slug% at .544
- He’s 9th in the league in OPS at .923
- He’s 3rd in the league in runs scored at 86
- He’s 2nd in the league in hits with 158
- He’s fourth in the league in total bases with 265
- He’s 3rd in the league in doubles with 35
- He’s 6th in the league in adjusted OPS or OPS+ with 147
- He’s 7th in the league in runs created at 99
- He’s 6th in the league in extra base hits at 60
Now I’ll agree that none of these particular numbers stands out at you and says MVP, but in the aggregate, you have an incredibly consistent hitter who is combining average with power without any stretches of infallibility along with a rookie shortstop. This stuff has never been done. No rookie shortstop has ever done what Corey Seager is doing that had enough at-bats to qualify for the batting championship.
| Player | OPS+ | PA | Year | Age | OPS |
| Corey Seager | 147 | 533 | 2016 | 22 | 0.923 |
| Charlie Hollocher | 134 | 588 | 1918 | 22 | 0.775 |
| Bobby Grich | 127 | 528 | 1972 | 23 | 0.773 |
| Nomar Garciaparra (RoY-1st) | 123 | 734 | 1997 | 23 | 0.875 |
Rookies r Us
Dodger rookies continue to pound the baseball helping the Dodgers route Madison Bumgarner and the Giants.
Segedin hit a home run in his first at-bat against Madison Bumgarner, giving him two home runs in two games. Segedin isn’t doing it against the lousy lefties either. Two weeks ago when he collected his first hit it was against David Price.
Toles came into the game late and still managed to hit a double and home run, also giving him two home runs in two games.
Seager simply hit his 35th double, two singles, and a walk, getting on base four times.
Adrian Gonzalez is no rookie but he is just as hot as the rookies, Adrian drove in three more runs giving him 11 RBI in two games.
The pitching was the same old story. The starter barely went five giving up three runs. The bullpen pitched four great innings, and the offense slugged their way to another victory.
It ain’t your normal recipe for success but whatever the Dodgers put in the oven it is coming out tasting like victory.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 