Mariners gaze into the abyss of Angels pitching, abyss gives up 11 runs

With the triad of Trout-Ohtani-Rendon theoretically propping up a stars-and-scrubs offense for years to come, the Angels turned their attention to doing everything they could to acquire pitching, highlighted by their famous “Oops, All College Pitchers” draft in 2021. Tonight showed how little progress the organization has made on that front, while also illustrating why the gap between the Mariners and their AL West rivals should only continue to grow over the coming years.

Tonight the Angels debuted Jack Kochanowicz, their 2019 third-rounder. Way back in 2019, the prepster Kochanowicz was one of my favorites as a potential Day Two sign; the Mariners wound up taking a boatload of college arms that year instead, including third-rounder Levi Stoudt, who has been in and out of the organization. Kochanowicz has been throwing very well at Double-A, but as tonight showed, the bigs are a totally different animal, as the Mariners greeted Kochanowicz very rudely, tagging him for five runs (four earned) in just three innings with seven hits. And not just hits, but hard hits:

That spicy single from Josh Rojas scored the first run of the game, after J.P. Crawford had led off the game with a ground-rule double. The Mariners probably could have done more damage, with the first five hitters reaching safely against Kochanowicz, but noodle-armed Mickey Moniak managed a perfect throw to get Rojas trying to get to third on Cal Raleigh’s single. They also got some good luck when Luis Guillorme overthrew a ball into the stands that could have been an easy double play on Ty France, allowing another run to score, but still, by the time the inning was over, the Mariners were already staked to a 4-0 lead thanks to a two-out, two-run single by Jorge Polanco, who continues to hit well on this road trip.

After a quiet second inning, the Mariners got another run in the third on a home run from Cal Raleigh, his first of two on the day:

The Mariners batters did a good job of getting after Kochanowicz’s fastball, which was hard (97 mph) but on the plate and hittable. When he tried to shift to his lesser secondary stuff, they jumped on that too, laying off on pitches outside the zone and forcing him onto the plate, and most importantly, keeping him away from being able to get to his above-average changeup; he threw just four. It took Kochanowicz 60 pitches to make it through just three innings, bringing his debut to an abbreviated end.

Following Kochanowicz was Kenny Rosenberg, making his season debut after spending all of this season toiling at Salt Lake with the Bees. Utah is nicknamed The Beehive State as a nod to the industry and work ethic of its people, and Rosenberg definitely has carried that work ethic with him; the pitching-poor Angels hung with Rosenberg for the distance, making him wear the 11-0 loss as the Mariners continued to extend their lead. J.P. Crawford officially moved the game into laugher territory by greeting Rosenberg in the fourth with a two-run home run, scoring Mitch Haniger, who had walked.

But J.P. wasn’t done torturing Rosenberg, singling in the sixth to score Jorge Polanco and move Jonatan Clase over to second, both of whom had singled. Then Cal Raleigh decided to put the game to an early end:

Per MLB’s Jason Bernard, that is the first time in the Statcast era a batter has hit a home run from both sides of the plate with an exit velocity over 110 MPH. Per Alex Mayer, Cal is the first player to homer from both sides of the plate twice within a three-game span since the Angels’ Jeff DaVanon did it in back-to-back games back in 2003. Per me, Cal is great and the Mariners should give him all the money.

Meanwhile, Luis Castillo held the Angels scoreless over six, and the bullpen ensured that the shutout would hold. If we can nitpick a performance where Castillo went six innings and surrendered no runs on four hits while striking out five, it’s that he wasn’t super efficient with his pitches, running some deep counts and issuing two free passes. Castillo went super fastball-heavy against the Angels, throwing it 56% of the time; the pitch seemed to have some extra movement on it (and indeed, was +2 on its vertical break tonight), as well as slightly (.5 mph) hotter on average, and while it did bait hitters into a lot of swings when it was on the plate (54% swings), it also ran away from him at times. The new, slower slider didn’t produce a lot of whiffs but did get a fair number of called strikes (4 of the 11 he threw) and also led to some weak-contact outs.

The Mariners had built up their lead significantly enough that they could lift Castillo in the seventh and insert Mike Baumann to get some low-leverage work as he continues to work to reign in his big stuff and scattershot command. Baumann got some help on another amazing catch by Julio, his second of the game, and had some bad luck on a ball that bounced off his foot that Rojas couldn’t quite gather in time to nail the speedy Moniak at first. Then came some self-imposed damage with a hit by pitch and walk to load the bases with two outs, bringing up Nolan Schanuel, who lined out. Baumann’s ceiling remains so tantalizing, but he definitely needs more time with the organization to get it going in the right direction.

Less-sexy stuff-wise but a quiet hero of low leverage appearances, Eduard Bazardo took over in the eighth and worked a quick 1-2-3 ending, ending with getting Logan O’Hoppe flailing helplessly after a slider that landed in the opposite batters’ box. He came back on for the ninth and immediately struck out pinch-hitter Keston Hiura, nabbing him on the slider again, before walking pinch-hitter Willie Calhoun. A generous strike three call to Zach Neto, who chose not to argue his fate like Kevin Pillar had earlier, as the latter had been tossed out of the game, and an Luis Guillorme lineout ended the game for an easy, breezy, beautiful 11-0 win.

We have many well-deserved frustrations with the Mariners, but one thing that cannot be argued is the success they’ve had in developing pitchers, both starters and relievers. With apologies to Kenny Rosenberg, I’d rather have even the Mariners’ low-leverage mop-up guys than anyone developed by the Angels’ pitching department. It made me think of one of my favorite, most schadenfreude-y Reply Guys Tweets of all time:

While I disagree with the esteemed Rangers fan that “they’re [sic] nothing”, I agree: it’s not fair. Although in the grand scheme of things, it feels like Mariners fans are due a little unfairness in their favor, specifically against the Angels, no?