Sausage Fest: Mariners at Twins Series Preview
The Mariners head to Minnesota to face the hottest team in baseball.
Something, something, starting pitching. Something, something, Josh Rojas. I appreciate this game that the Mariners are playing — they’re showing off enough to nab what is now six straight series wins, but not so much that they’re sweeping teams willy-nilly and giving off a false sense of authority. Gotta keep the pressure low, maintain the illusion of decency to pull off that elusive reverse catfish move in October. (Maybe Jake will add something of actual use here. Maybe he won’t. You’re here, reading Lookout Landing, so you probably have a decent understanding of the status of your first place Seattle Mariners.)
There are a lot of really lovely, ridiculous pockets of baseball that have absolutely nothing to do with the game being played and instead serve as precious reminders that the boys who dress daily in matching sets, and perfect elaborate coordinated hand shakes/celebrations, and can’t understand how the earth is so old, are just that: Boys. The Sausage Saga of the Minnesota Twins is one such pocket. Or rather, one such Summer Tangy Sausage package. The short of it is that a hitting coach saw a package of cooked sausages, decided that this decidedly not shelf-stable product should go in the dugout, the fellas had a good night at the plate, someone connected the good hitting to the sweating meat package and they all imprinted on it. Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers toted it in his gear bag to all their subsequent games and would throw it to home run hitters upon their return. Some players would “touch it for good luck” before at-bats, and the “magic” of the rally sausage carried Minnesota to 12 consecutive wins. Given the number of current and retired baseball players out there, it’s a little shocking there aren’t more cults.
The rally sausage evidently reached its expiration date yesterday, as the Twins’ win streak came to an end. A moment of silence for the sausage, which brought us one of my favorite quotes in recent memory from manager Rocco Baldelli: “I’m slightly concerned as — I’m not even an adult — but slightly concerned as more of an adult than maybe some of the people in the other room that the package is going to open up and the thing hasn’t been refrigerated in many days, and there’s no doubt that when that thing opens up, whoever’s touching it is in deep trouble. That thing is — there’s no doubt in my mind that we are carrying around something that is very, very unhealthy to the human body.” The Twins are currently clinging to second in the ever-inexplicable (complimentary) (derogatory) AL Central.
Far from immune from the injury bug, the Twins have been relatively fortunate that many of their erstwhile ILers have — or soon will — return to them after only a short stay. Carlos Correa is back, as is Max Kepler, and while the combo “Byron Buxton to the IL” feels as natural as PB&J, sources seem positive it will only be a 10-day stint. The absence of Royce Lewis with a quad strain, though, is potent. Sausage King Ryan Jeffers leads the team in offensive production, with Trevor Larnach and Jose Miranda providing support while vying for the lead role in “2022 Ty France: An Odyssey.” As a team, they’re slugging .402 with a nominal interest in walks and a hefty focus on contact.
**It’s important to note that the Twins’ offense also currently benefits from the Carlos Santana Effect, which carries a far more storied history of good vibes than a meager package of cased meats.
Probable Pitchers
Simeon Woods Richardson has been part of the headlining return in two trades involving big name starters; the Marcus Stroman trade in 2019 and the José Berríos trade in 2021. A high school draftee back in 2018, he had a single big league appearance in each of the last two seasons — his development had stalled out thanks to the pandemic and his extremely raw ability when drafted. He’s finally getting a shot to prove that he can stick in the majors and his first three starts this year have gone as well as he could have hoped. He doesn’t throw very hard but he has decent command of his four-pitch arsenal.
Bailey Ober uses his gigantic 6-foot-9 frame to generate 96th percentile extension on all of his pitches. That helps his otherwise unremarkable velocity play up significantly and creates a unique release point simply due to the height he’s releasing the ball. He has a pretty standard three-quarters arm angle, but because he’s so tall it does some weird things with the movement of his pitches and their approach angle as they cross the plate. It’s why his fastball has one of the most extreme batted ball profiles in baseball — batters almost never put it in play on the ground and the pitch generates an extremely high popup rate. His best pitch is his changeup and he commands all four pitches in his arsenal extremely well.
Chris Paddack missed the majority of the last two seasons after suffering an elbow injury just five starts into his Twins career and then only making it back to the majors for a pair of regular-season appearances out of the bullpen last year. Early in his career, he found success with a decent fastball and a plus changeup. But that two-pitch mix was easily exploited if just one of those pitches was off and he couldn’t develop a breaking ball to deepen his repertoire. After so long away from the majors rehabbing from his Tommy John surgery, it looks like he’s finally figured out a third and fourth option for his arsenal; he’s throwing a slider and curveball around a third of the time now.
Pablo López improved his strikeout rate by nearly six points last year thanks to a brand-new sweeper that he added to his repertoire upon joining the Twins in the (other) big Luis Arraez trade a couple offseasons ago. That new pitch gave him a consistent breaking ball to pair with his already excellent changeup. With those two plus secondaries under his belt, he raised his ceiling from a solid starter to a true frontline ace. This year, his results have been a little unfortunate despite peripherals that look better than they did last season. His ERA is nearly a run higher than his FIP thanks to some uncharacteristic struggles with runners on base.
The Big Picture:
With the M’s delivering Houston their first non-sweep series loss on the heels of a few hard-fought wins, there are sparks of hope from the ever-delusional Astros fanbase - though the bullpen will certainly keep doing their best to tamp that out. The Rangers keep walloping and falling victim to injuries (most recently, ROY candidate Wyatt Langford), the A’s lineup missed the memo that the 90s and 2000s are in and has instead decided to channel 1989, and the Angels are definitely playing a type of baseball for sure. To borrow and grossly mis-contextualize a quote from Wallace Stegner, “One cannot be pessimistic about the West.”