Mamma mia!
Bryce Miller’s mom, Denise, once described the feeling of watching her son pitch in MLB thusly: “I want to cry every single time.” That’s basically how I’ve felt about watching Miller pitch this season too, but probably for different reasons.
It should be noted that today’s game didn’t start that way. The first two times through the order, it looked like Bryce Miller was getting back on track. While his fastball command has been his central problem early in the season, he was very four-seamer focused early on today, with positive results. He went to the pitch 45% of the time the first two times through, and while he left a few too many middle-down, he otherwise commanded it better than he had all year, resulting in three strikeouts and no walks. It wasn’t totally pain free: in the second, the Jays strung together three singles with the help of some generous calls from Dolores Umbridge calling the zone today, and they small-balled another run in the fourth. But for the most part, it was as promising as Miller has looked yet this season.
Then we got to the third time through the order and were taken on a tragic carpet ride. Vladito scorched a 117-mph hit, followed by a walk to Addison Barger, and then a fastball that George Springer crushed to the upper tank.
Miller eventually won an 11-pitch battle with Tyler Heineman, who should not take 11 pitches to retire, to get out of the inning. After he opened the sixth with a walk and a base hit, his day—and my optimism about his start—came to an end. Things continued to unravel on Collin Snider’s watch, but not in a way anyone’s going to care about. Eventually Leo Rivas pitched the ninth, which I know tickles some people, but position players pitching has become so routine in MLB these days that, speaking for myself, I can’t get excited about it anymore.
Seattle’s lone run came from a DMo ho ho in the third, and for that he gets today’s Sun Hat Award. But that inning ended with Cal Raleigh making a very ill-advised stolen base attempt that resulted in the first legitimate caught stealing of his career.
The offense’s remaining attempt to fight back was limited to a lot of pop ups and at ‘em ground balls, which turned out not to work. As we’ve seen throughout the series, there was some spectacular defense from the Jays, including robbing Julio three times. While it was encouraging that the Mariners only struck out seven times, the game was mostly hopeless. For instance, Rowdy Tellez stayed in the lineup the first time against lefty Eric Lauer, but Dan Wilson pinch-hit Donovan Solano the second time. Solano made what was probably his most convincing contact of the season, which had an xBA of .270 and was caught easily by Myles Straw. At this point, pinch-hitting Solano for Rowdy is a bit like vaping instead of smoking. It’s still bad for you, and unlike smoking, it doesn’t even look cool.
Sorry, moms.