Exactly one year ago, the Mariners were reeling after going 1-8 on a long road trip, falling five games behind the Astros in the division as a result. Scott Servais was fired, Dan Wilson was hired, and the M’s wound up missing the playoffs by one game. Fast forward one year and the Mariners are again reeling after going 2-7 on a long road trip, falling two games behind the Astros in the division. I don’t think Wilson is going to be fired, but the similarities to these two August swoons are striking.
Of course, the full-season context is a little different; the ‘24 M’s had a 10-game division lead at one point and the Wild Card race was a lot more crowded. This year, the M’s only led the division by 3.5 games back in May, but the Astros have looked weaker than they have in a decade and the Wild Card race is a lot thinner.
Anyway, with that history lesson out of the way, let’s look forward to this weekend. The Mariners return home looking to get their season back on track with a series against the A’s.
| Athletics | Mariners |
|---|---|
| Game 1 | Friday, August 22 | 7:10 pm |
| RHP Luis Morales | RHP Bryan Woo |
| 38% | 62% |
| Game 2 | Saturday, August 23 | 6:40 pm |
| LHP Jeffrey Springs | RHP George Kirby |
| 34% | 66% |
| Game 3 | Sunday, August 24 | 1:10 pm |
| LHP Jacob Lopez | RHP Logan Gilbert |
| 37% | 63% |
| Overview | Athletics | Mariners | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Batting (wRC+) | 106 (4th in AL) | 109 (3rd in AL) | Mariners |
| Fielding (OAA) | -15 (12th) | -24 (14th) | Athletics |
| Starting Pitching (FIP-) | 116 (15th) | 102 (8th) | Mariners |
| Bullpen (FIP-) | 101 (11th) | 103 (13th) | Athletics |
The A’s aren’t cellar-dwelling pushovers anymore. They’ve gone 18-13 since the All-Star break and have scored the third most runs in baseball in August. Their pitching staff is still a bit of a mess, but these guys can really hit. The Athletics are a lot closer to building a contender than many expected after averaging more than 100 losses a season over the last three years. Right now, the season series between these two teams is split at five games apiece, but this series will be a lot tougher than you might think.
| Player | Position | Bats | PA | K% | BB% | ISO | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Kurtz | 1B | L | 367 | 29.4% | 13.1% | 0.334 | 184 |
| Shea Langeliers | C | R | 401 | 18.5% | 6.7% | 0.285 | 132 |
| Brent Rooker | DH | R | 563 | 22.0% | 9.2% | 0.222 | 127 |
| Tyler Soderstrom | LF | L | 513 | 22.2% | 9.4% | 0.210 | 127 |
| Lawrence Butler | CF | L | 513 | 28.7% | 9.2% | 0.179 | 95 |
| Darell Hernaiz | SS | R | 83 | 9.6% | 12.0% | 0.159 | 105 |
| JJ Bleday | RF | L | 280 | 25.4% | 11.4% | 0.174 | 87 |
| Brett Harris | 3B | R | 26 | 19.2% | 7.7% | 0.045 | 64 |
| Luis Urías | 2B | R | 325 | 13.5% | 9.2% | 0.109 | 83 |
The two best hitters in all of baseball since the All-Star break have been Nick Kurtz (264 wRC+) and Shea Langeliers (214 wRC+). Kurtz is hitting over .400 and slugging over .800 since the Midsummer Classic and has very quickly established himself as the favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year award. Meanwhile, Langeliers has blasted a major league leading 16 home runs since the All-Star break. Not to be outdone, Tyler Soderstrom has been on a heater in August, posting a 213 wRC+ with four home runs this month. While the top half of the A’s lineup has been outstanding, the bottom half is still a work in progress. With Jacob Wilson and Max Muncy (not the Dodgers’ Max Muncy, the other Max Muncy) injured, the A’s have resorted to throwing whatever they can at their infield to see if anyone is able to stick.
Probable Pitchers
| Pitcher | IP | K% | BB% | HR/FB% | GB% | ERA | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luis Morales (MiLB) | 89.1 | 29.2% | 9.6% | 12.5% | 40.6% | 3.73 | 4.07 |
| Bryan Woo | 152 | 25.5% | 4.7% | 12.2% | 39.0% | 3.02 | 3.59 |
Luis Morales was the A’s top pitching prospect entering this season and made his big league debut on August 1. It’s been an absolutely meteoric rise for him after signing as an international amateur out of Cuba in January 2023. He dominated four different minor league levels upon his professional debut, rising to High-A by the end of 2023. He repeated that level last year and climbed from Double-A to the majors in just his third professional season. He’s got an upper-90s fastball, a nasty slider, and the arm speed to develop a plus changeup. He’s a particularly raw pitcher at his stage of development, but he possesses the physical traits and tools to become a frontline starter if he’s able to put everything together.
| Pitcher | IP | K% | BB% | HR/FB% | GB% | ERA | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jeffrey Springs | 140 | 19.5% | 7.5% | 12.2% | 31.8% | 4.24 | 4.72 |
| George Kirby | 89.2 | 25.4% | 6.2% | 12.0% | 45.4% | 4.22 | 3.37 |
| Pitch | Frequency | Velocity | Stuff+ | Whiff+ | BIP+ | xwOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Four-seam | 42.6% | 90.6 | 90 | 69 | 78 | 0.343 |
| Cutter | 5.1% | 86.8 | 90 | 118 | 112 | 0.463 |
| Changeup | 25.6% | 79.3 | 99 | 129 | 84 | 0.280 |
| Slider | 22.1% | 83.5 | 95 | 62 | 96 | 0.366 |
| Sweeper | 4.6% | 75.9 | 95 | 95 | 135 | 0.164 |
From a previous series preview:
Jeffrey Springs was the other big offseason acquisition for the A’s after they brought him over in a big trade with the Rays. Springs enjoyed a breakout season in 2022 but was injured early in the next season and needed Tommy John surgery, costing him the rest of 2023 and most of 2024. His stuff was pretty diminished in his seven big league starts last year, but his surface level stats looked pretty good. When he’s at his peak, his changeup is a pretty deadly weapon and he emerged from his injury rehab with a new cutter under his belt. He’ll need to find some extra velocity on his fastball to hit his ceiling — he lost more than a tick off his heater last year — but his secondary offerings are all top notch.
| Pitcher | IP | K% | BB% | HR/FB% | GB% | ERA | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob Lopez | 90.2 | 29.1% | 8.1% | 11.6% | 28.3% | 3.28 | 3.82 |
| Logan Gilbert | 91.2 | 33.2% | 6.1% | 16.3% | 41.4% | 3.83 | 3.26 |
| Pitch | Frequency | Velocity | Stuff+ | Whiff+ | BIP+ | xwOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Four-seam | 37.2% | 90.8 | 93 | 135 | 92 | 0.303 |
| Sinker | 4.3% | 90.2 | 84 | |||
| Cutter | 14.5% | 87.7 | 91 | 81 | 90 | 0.321 |
| Changeup | 13.6% | 82.7 | 83 | 103 | 126 | 0.254 |
| Slider | 30.4% | 78.2 | 101 | 95 | 99 | 0.259 |
The A’s acquired Jacob Lopez in the same December trade that brought Springs over from the Rays. At the time, it looked like Lopez was just a throw-in, but fast forward eight months and Lopez is clearly outproducing Springs in nearly every significant metric. Lopez was never a highly regarded prospect — he was ranked 25th on the 2024 Rays prospect list with the ceiling of a spot starter or middle reliever — and the stuff models really aren’t impressed with his pitches. But the results are undeniable: his 29.1% strikeout rate ranks eighth among starters with at least as many innings pitched as he does and his contact management metrics all paint a picture of a pitcher who is extremely hard to square up. Michael Rosen recently theorized that his cross-body delivery (think Chris Sale) gives his pitches some added deception that allows them to play up way past their characteristics. That’s as good as any explanation for why a soft-tossing lefty with a slow looping slider is able to run a strikeout rate approaching 30%.
The Big Picture:
| Team | W-L | W% | Games Behind | Recent Form |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Astros | 70-58 | 0.547 | L-L-L-L-W | |
| Mariners | 68-60 | 0.531 | 2.0 | L-L-L-L-L |
| Rangers | 63-66 | 0.488 | 7.5 | W-L-L-W-L |
| Angels | 61-66 | 0.480 | 8.5 | L-W-L-L-W |
| Athletics | 59-70 | 0.457 | 11.5 | W-L-W-W-W |
| Team | W-L | W% | Games Behind | Recent Form |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yankees | 69-58 | 0.543 | +1.5 | W-W-W-W-L |
| Red Sox | 69-59 | 0.539 | +1.0 | W-L-L-L-W |
| Mariners | 68-60 | 0.531 | — | L-L-L-L-L |
| Royals | 66-62 | 0.516 | 2.0 | W-W-W-L-W |
| Guardians | 64-62 | 0.508 | 3.0 | L-L-W-L-L |
I sort of alluded to it in the lede, but the Mariners have really benefited from a really bad stretch from the entire American League. The Astros and Red Sox have only been a single game better than the M’s over their last 10 games while the Guardians have matched the M’s record during this stretch. It seems like the Yankees and the Royals are the only teams showing a bit of life in the Wild Card race right now.
Rooting interests this weekend:
- The Orioles over the Astros in Baltimore.
- The Tigers over the Royals in Detroit.
- Chaos between the Red Sox and Yankees in New York.
- Chaos between the Rangers and Guardians in Texas (but probably a Rangers series win since Cleveland is closer to Seattle in the standings).
