With both the Astros and Yankees getting swept last weekend, the Mariners had a wide open opportunity to gain ground in both the division and the Wild Card race. It was a hard-fought series win, but the Mariners managed to continue their terrorization of the Rangers in Seattle. And even though the season series against Texas had already been won — and thereby securing the very important tiebreaker in the standings — it was really nice to extend the M’s domination of the Rangers in T-Mobile Park to 38-9 over the last six years.
White Sox Game 1 RHP Davis MartinMariners Tuesday, August 5 | 6:40 pm RHP Bryan Woo32%68%Game 2Wednesday, August 6 | 6:40 pmRHP Jonathan CannonRHP George Kirby29%71%Game 3Thursday, August 7 | 1:10 pmRHP Shane SmithRHP Logan Gilbert30%70%
*Game odds courtesy of FanGraphs
The Mariners schedule looks pretty easy until late September; they won’t face an AL playoff team until a visit to Houston in the second-to-last week of the season and only face four teams with records over .500 until then. To start this lull in the schedule, they’ll host the White Sox for three games this week.
The White Sox surpassed their win total from last year on Saturday which means they’re well on their way to improving on their historically bad season. Surprisingly, they’ve been playing some decent baseball since the All-Star break, going 10-5 in the second half and scoring the fourth most runs in baseball since the Midsummer Classic.
The White Sox made the curious choice to hold onto Luis Robert Jr. at the trade deadline. He’s been one of their best hitters since being activated off the IL on July 8, compiling a .355/.423/.516 slash line (a 161 wRC+) in that time. Their opinion of his value to the team has always seemed a little out of line with how the industry views him so he’ll finish the season in Chicago and the ballclub will have a difficult decision to pick up his $20 million club option for next year. On the brighter side, the youth movement looks like it’s churning out some interesting players; Edgar Quero (188 wRC+ in July), Colson Montgomery (126), and Kyle Teel (104) were all highly regarded prospects and all are contributing to this recent hot streak. Even the veterans are getting in on the action, with Andrew Benintendi and Mike Tauchman both enjoying resurgent production at the plate this year.
Jonathan Cannon graduated from the White Sox farm system last year as a high-floor back-end starter. His excellent command and deep repertoire makes up for some lackluster stuff. He doesn’t strike out that many, but doesn’t allow too many baserunners and limits hard contact well enough to get by. Stuff+ views his sweeper as his best pitch, but he hasn’t figured out how to get the swing-and-miss results from that pitch yet. He’s done a lot of work to improve his feel for his changeup to give him a weapon against left-handed batters, but his platoon split is still pretty dramatic.
From a previous series preview:
Across his first three seasons in the majors, encompassing 162.2 innings, Davis Martin has posted FIPs of 4.28, 4.27, and 4.24. While the peripherals have stayed relatively stable, his ERA has dropped from 4.83 in his rookie season to 3.65 this year. He uses a kitchen sink approach to keep batters off balance, though none of his individual pitches are standouts. With a command-over-stuff profile and deep six-pitch repertoire, you might expect that his contact quality metrics would be driving his success. Unfortunately, his low ERA is a pretty significant mirage; he’s allowed a 47.5% hard hit rate this year, a ten point increase over last year, and batters are barreling up his pitches more than 10% of the time. Regression is coming.
Jonathan Cannon graduated from the White Sox farm system last year as a high-floor back-end starter. His excellent command and deep repertoire makes up for some lackluster stuff. He doesn’t strike out that many, but doesn’t allow too many baserunners and limits hard contact well enough to get by. Stuff+ views his sweeper as his best pitch, but he hasn’t figured out how to get the swing-and-miss results from that pitch yet. He’s done a lot of work to improve his feel for his changeup to give him a weapon against left-handed batters, but his platoon split is still pretty dramatic.
Shane Smith’s success has been the brightest beacon of hope for the White Sox this year. A Rule 5 pick from the Brewers, Smith has had a wild path to the majors. He threw all of 10.1 innings in college thanks to injury and COVID, signed with Milwaukee as an undrafted free agent, and very quickly rose through their system as a one-inning reliever. He only made the switch to the rotation midway through last year, but gaudy strikeout numbers in the minors made him an enticing pick for the White Sox, who had the roster room to take a risk on someone like Smith. He looked solid for the first two and a half months of the season, but ran into some bumps in late June and then hit the IL with a sprained ankle.
The Rangers and Yankees got a big series started on Monday with Texas emerging with a dramatic walk-off victory. After its fourth straight loss, New York is now tied in the standings with the Mariners. Also happening around the league yesterday: The Astros snapped out of their funk with a victory over the red-hot Marlins and the Red Sox extended their win streak to six games after defeating the Royals.