WSOU

AL West Weekly No. 6

Date: August 24, 2021

By: Ryan Henry

Seattle Mariners players celebrate at home plate during a MLB game.

Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle

As much as I would love to solely talk about the on-field play and the exciting players within this division, some stories off the field are just too big for me to ignore.

As you probably remember, the baseball world lost Tyler Skaggs on July 1, 2019, due to an overdose. Federal prosecutors who are working on the case involving his death are now alleging that former Angel employee, Eric Kay, was running a drug operation within the Angels organization. On June 30, the day before Skaggs’ overdose, prosecutors found out that oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl were delivered to Angels Stadium.

Tyler Skaggs' Los Angeles Angels jersey is shown remembering the former player.

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

Government reports also indicate that Kay may have dealt oxycodone pills to at least five different Angels players since 2017, with Skaggs being used as a middleman. Also, Kay would sometimes trade Angels memorabilia, such as a signed Mike Trout baseball, to acquire the oxycodone. Kay pleaded not guilty to all charges related to drug distribution and conspiracy and is cooperating with authorities.

To move towards some more positive Angels’ news, Shohei Ohtani is really good. Now, that isn’t really news, but Ohtani continues to dominate both at the plate and on the mound. On Aug. 18 against the Detroit Tigers, Ohtani proved why he should be the 2021 AL MVP.

On the mound, he earned the win, pitching eight strong innings, allowing only one run, and striking out eight batters. Then, in the eighth inning, he added another homer to give him a league-best 40 dingers for the year. 

While we’re talking about Ohtani, here are some stats I found via @SlangsOnSports on Twitter that prove how historical his 2021 season has been.

He leads the MLB with 20 homers that have an exit velocity of 110-plus miles per hour. He has six homers that travelled 450-plus feet (tied for first in the MLB), opposing batters have a .075 average on Ohtani’s splitter which is the lowest for any pitch by any pitcher (minimum 80 plate appearances), and his 1.58 ERA since July 1 is the second lowest among qualified starters with at least five games started.

The Oakland Athletics are skidding, and they are skidding hard. They are 3-9 in their last 12 games and have lost their last three series. I mentioned in last week’s article that this upcoming stretch for the Athletics was going to be brutal, and brutal it has been. The A’s are lucky though because this could’ve been a lot worse.

They only fell back one game to the Astros since Aug. 16 and didn’t lose any games against the Boston Red Sox for the second wild card spot. This last week reaffirmed what I’ve thought about the Athletics for the past month or so: they are a good team, but they simply can’t beat the top dogs for an entire series. The Athletics have two more tough series this week in the Mariners and Yankees before their schedule eases up, but if they walk out of both of their series either splitting or losing, it will be very telling as we enter the final month of baseball. 

Before I move onto the next team, my wishes and prayers go out to Oakland pitcher Chris Bassitt for a safe and speedy recovery. On Aug. 17, he took a line drive straight to the face, which broke his jaw and had him hospitalized. He is doing a lot better right now, but he will need to undergo facial surgery that may cause him to miss the rest of the season. It will be a shame if he is out the rest of the year because he was having a breakout year and was easily the Athletics’ best starting pitcher all season.   

Despite the gauntlet of a schedule the Athletics have faced the past week compared to the pedestrian schedule of the Astros, Houston has only been able to gain one game over Oakland. No, it isn’t because the Athletics have been amazing during this stretch, it’s because the Astros keep tripping over themselves. They haven't been consistent since the All-Star break, and they need to figure out their issues at the plate right away.

Let’s start with their series against the then 49-67, Kansas City Royals. The four pitchers on the mound for Kansas City were Carlos Hernandez, Daniel Lynch, Brady Singer, and Mike Minor. Minor, Singer, and Lynch all have an ERA above five with an ERA+ below 90, where 100 is league average.

Hernandez, who does not fall into this abysmal category of pitching, still has a 3.97 ERA and a 1.305 WHIP. If I were an Astros hitter, I would be salivating at the glands. So how many runs did the Astros score on these pitchers? 10. Yes, you are seeing that correctly.

A team with the second-best OPS and slugging in all of baseball scored 10 runs against four pitchers whose combined ERA is 4.92. This has been the story of the Astros the second half of the season as they are 11th in OBP and 12th in RBIs since the start of August. Luckily for them, some small ball in the bottom of the 10th inning of the fourth game prevented Houston from getting swept. 

So what did the Astros do next series against the playoff-contending Seattle Mariners? They scored 30 runs in three games. In Saturday’s contest alone, the Astros scored the same amount of runs as they did in their four-game series against the Royals. Yordan Alvarez was especially on fire this series, as he homered in every contest and brought home a combined eight RBIs across the three games. 

The Astros can right their wrongs from last week as they are playing another three-game series against the Royals, this time at home.

We know what the Mariners are at this point. They are a fun and young group of overachievers who are just a couple of years away from being really good. They win in weird ways, and despite having a run differential worse than the 51-74 Miami Marlins, the Mariners are still competing. Even though they got outscored by the Astros 30-9, the Mariners are somehow the hottest team in the AL West, winning seven of their last 10. 

In all the talk about their young guys, I sometimes forget the Mariners still have some great veterans. Kyle Seager and Mitch Haniger, who are both finally healthy for the first time since 2018, are mashing the ball this season as they have 29 homers each, which is tied for seventh in the league, and are one homer away each from joining Marcus Semien and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as the only teammates with 30 homers. There is also Ty France, whose homer in the ninth inning helped beat Oakland Monday night. It’s his fifth in the last nine games, and during that stretch, he is also batting .371 with a 1.280 OPS. 

Remember when I said that the Mariners might have won the Kendall Graveman trade long term because of Abraham Toro? Well, it turns out they may have found their Graveman replacement.

Paul Sewald was brought in from the Mets in the 2020 free agency period for just over $500,000. Obviously, a guy with that contract like that isn’t supposed to be a huge contributor or in some cases, he might not make the final roster. But Sewald has been lights out for the Mariners this season. In 42 innings pitched, he has a 2.57 ERA, a 2.00 FIP, a sub-one WHIP and 15.0 K/9. With Diego Castillo now on the IL, the Mariners have looked to Sewald to lock it down in the ninth and he’s converted on his last three save opportunities.

The Rangers are a bad team, and there’s not much to talk about when you’re a bad team in the middle of August. The good thing for the Rangers is that their farm system is finally getting better.

In MLB.com’s latest prospect rankings, the Rangers have five top-100 prospects, including number two overall pick this year, Jack Leiter, who is already the 12th ranked prospect in all of baseball. Also, rookie phenom Adolis Garcia had an insane catch in Thursday's game against the Mariners which I can’t simply overlook.

Ryan Henry can be reached at ryan.henry@student.shu.edu.

Posted in: Sports

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