As the baseball season gets going, it’s easy to get lost in the daily routine of working game after game. We forget to look at the trends. Each week, we will open up the stat book and see what’s been good, bad, or interesting with the Mariners.
Already a quarter through the season, the season is flying by. The Mariner pitching staff continues to be the backbone of the team. Meanwhile, the offense has gone ice cold as of late.
Stats are accurate through June 28th games.
A sputtering offense
It was a really tough week for the Harwich bats. If you take away the four runs in the tenth inning against Chatham, the team scored just 11 runs in 45 innings.
The team ranks in the bottom two in AVG,OBP, SLG, OPS, among other categories. Its 70 hits are also dead last
Nobody had a great week, a couple guys had a good game, but no one lit up the stat sheet.
First pitch woes
The Mariners have had a lot of quick 1-2-3 innings. Part of the reason is guys are swinging early in the count and not making great contact. Harwich batters swing at the first pitch over 35% of the time.
Unfortunately, the aggressiveness has not paid off. The team is batting just .245 on the first pitch.
That figure drops to .156 as soon as guys fall behind in the count.
No-no McNeillie
In a week where the pitching staff carried the team, Luke McNeillie’s performance this week cannot be overlooked. He allowed a single walk to a Y-D Red Sox team that scored 13 runs the day before against Wareham.
He kept his pitching mix pretty simple, meaning he was hitting his spots all night.
Here is the breakdown:
- Fastball (51.9%)
- Slider (46.3%)
- Changeup (1.9%)
The Florida righty utilized his fastball to set up his slider, as four of his five strikeouts came on the breaking ball.
It's simple, but it works. He's allowed just three hits and a run with the Mariners.
Farewell Jake McCoy
It’s going to be tough to see McCoy go. There was a buzz every time he pitched. His fastball was nearly unhittable and he racked up the strikeouts. His 25 were tied for the lead after Saturday.
His 18.24 strikeouts per nine innings leads the league. That figure is also the highest for the Mariners since at least 1965.
To go one further, if you take that list of guys who started at least three games, former Mariner Tim Lincecum (2005) had the next highest at 15.69.
Quick hits:
- For guys with at least 20 plate appearances, Shintaro Inoue’s .241 walk percentage is sixth in the league.
- Mariners have gotten hit by a league-leading 20 pitches. Steve Englert still loves toughness.
- In it’s last four games, Harwich has stuck out a league-high 44 times. That’s an average 11 times per game.
- Maddox Molony and Bristol Carter were the only two guys to collect three hits this week.
