Mariners 14, Twins 3: Mejia Crushed, Gimenez Pitches Again

This game shows how poor Molitor's game management was yesterday. You have the lead in the 7th inning and you hold Duffey and Rodgers for a tomorrow that doesn't come. 

Mejia's pitch graph looks like a shotgun accident. First lesson in pointillism? 

This game shows how poor Molitor's game management was yesterday. You have the lead in the 7th inning and you hold Duffey and Rodgers for a tomorrow that doesn't come. 

Yesterday the score was already 10-3 in Seattle's favor in the seventh. On the game the day  before Molitor stated something about Belisle with 19 out of 26 games without allowing a run. I have yet to see anything logical posted on why when Belisle is bad, it gets really bad in a hurry. I really do not expect anyone here to have the answer.to the conundrum that is Belisle's pitching this year.

It's tough for a pitcher going against the same team twice a week apart.  Gallardo had pretty much the same game he pitched against us last time, to his credit, and actually had a better stat line.  Mejia, on the other hand...  Holy Cow.

And now, Gibby, who had a good outing against the M's, also gets them in successive starts.  Will he fare like Gallardo did, or more like Mejia?  My money, sadly, is on the latter.

The rest of this series, after Gibby, has the Big Two starting, but then... 4, count 'em, 4 games with Cleveland, without Berrios or Santana.  I shudder to think.  Espn says Duffey gets a start in that series.  Maybe that's a good thing.  I hope so, but then we're going to need another BP arm, right?  Who's that gonna be?

It's great to be above .500, and great to see the top of the Central right now, but this next stretch, I fear, is going to be the last of maybe both of those things for the year.  That in itself is not a bad thing.  I want to keep running those kid relief pitchers up the ladder, even to the big club, and see what potential we've got. There's a couple of sticks down in Roch right now, too, that deserve a good look.   So they take some lumps?  It's all about auditioning and learning.  I'd rather see a young pitcher get lit and lose a game than  the manager give away more winnable ones with the retreads we keep trotting out. And the sooner I see new guys wearing Belisle's and Breslow's numbers, the better.  

2nd explosion for Mejia this season. Not happy with the "just didn’t have it today" narrative.  It was another slaughter.  Baaa, Baaa, Baaad.   

 I know ERA isn't the best way to measure a reliever, but compared to all MLB relievers with at least 15 performances, Belisle is the 3rd worst and Pressly is the 2nd worst (Dyson being the absolute worst) [not to mention their peripherals back this up]. There are other acceptable options - Hildenberger, Busenitz, Melotakis, Curtiss, etc... 

 

 

That is interesting - we really missed out on picking up Dyson then - we could have locked up the 3 highest reliever ERA's in the league.  lol!  

Oh, totally, Mejia got lit up. But there weren't many really big red flags to take away. The M's didn't barrel up any balls off him. They did have four hits of 95+ exit velocity, but the Twins managed to do that off Gallardo five times and he managed. Mejia got 12 swinging strikes on 77 pitches (15.6%), which is very good. 

 

His own error in the first inning hurt him. Two of Seattle's five hits in the second inning came off the bat at 76.4 (Cano's) and 75.4 mph (Smith's). It was a really bad game for him, but I'm inclined to give him a free pass on this one.

The hits weren't hard but there were a lot of liners and grounders right back up the middle. I assume that means they were seeing his pitches clearly and weren't being fooled on speed or anything. If they were bloopers or seeing-eye grounders then I'd chalk it up to being one of those days, but it looked more like the hitters had him figured out a little bit. Might be time to make an adjustment, which should be expected when breaking in a rookie. Hopefully he figures it out.

It's bush league to keep running Geminez out there. Put a major league bullpen out there if you are going to charge $12 for a beer.

Eh, his results are better than a lot of the pen so far...

Another opportunity for Gibson to prove he intends on not being sent down in the near future.  Unfortunately from an inventory of legit talent standpoint we aren't overflowing in the pitching department at the big league level.  If Gibson can continue to repeat the last couple of performances that would certainly be an upgrade to 3 reliable starters.  Santana/Berrios/Gibson...Let us hope he can come through. 

It's bush league to keep running Geminez out there. Put a major league bullpen out there if you are going to charge $12 for a beer.

He will need Tommy John surgery by the end of the year as many innings as they keep pitching him

 

 

Also, how Belisle and Breslow continue to be employed is beyond my comprehension. 

I think the phrase goes something like "Better the devil you know...."

After Wimmers and Rosario flamed out, I think management is simply too gun shy to assume anyone down in AAA or AA is better than those two.  It's a sad state of affairs!

What in the Flying Spaghetti Monster's name is going on here?

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