THE HOT CORNER
Baseball coverage from the inside — Sacramento Prayers and the FBL
By Claude Playball | Baseball Insider & Analyst | Host, "Hot Corner" Podcast
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April 30 – May 14, 1996 | Games 27–40 | Twenty-Four and Sixteen
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THE SEASON'S FIRST ROUGH PATCH, AND WHAT IT'S TELLING US
Six wins and eight losses. The team that opened the year eighteen and eight and felt like the runaway AL West favorite is now twenty-four and sixteen in early May, and the word that keeps coming to mind is the word the Hot Corner has been saying every time Strickler takes the ball against a team that is not the one he faced the previous start: inconsistency. Not collapse. Not crisis. Inconsistency, which is the gap between the pitcher who threw six and a third innings of two-hit baseball against Portland on April 19th and the same pitcher who lasted three innings and allowed eight runs against San Jose on May 10th in one of the ugliest individual starts of the 1996 season.
Columbus is twenty-nine and eleven. Charlotte is twenty-seven and twelve. Those two teams are playing a different caliber of baseball than everyone else in the American League right now, and Sacramento is not chasing either of them — the AL West lead over Seattle is four games and the division title is the only bracket that matters. But the Hot Corner is watching the Columbus number specifically because the most probable October road runs through a team that has already beaten Sacramento two games to one in this series and features a pitcher named Rich Flores who has now held this lineup to two runs across eleven and a third combined innings in 1996 alone.
The specific good news: Andretti is five and two with a 3.12 ERA, St. Clair is four and one with a 2.83 ERA, and Choi and Rodriguez are tied for the team lead with eight home runs apiece in forty games. The team is still leading the AL West. The Strickler situation and the left-handed pitching problem — Sacramento is two and six against southpaws this year — are the two structural issues that need May to provide answers.
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DID YOU CATCH THAT GAME? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY
@ Columbus, April 30 – May 2 (1-2)
Flores in Game One. Six and two-thirds innings, one earned run, eight strikeouts. The pattern continues: in five total starts against Sacramento across 1995 and 1996, Flores has allowed a combined six runs across thirty-four innings. His ERA against every other opponent in the league is 5.30. Against Sacramento it is something closer to mythology. Strickler lasted four and a third innings, allowed five runs, and the lineup managed seven hits that could not overcome the deficit. Seven to one, Columbus. The Hot Corner has now documented Flores five times. The coaching staff has video. Whatever the scouting report contains has not produced different results at the plate so far.
May 1st was Espenoza allowing two home runs in the first inning — Fujimoto and Salcevo back to back off back-to-back pitches — before the bullpen surrendered seven more across a five-pitcher parade. Schlageter struck out eleven Sacramento batters in seven innings. Eleven strikeouts from a Columbus starter with a 3.43 ERA. Eleven to four, Columbus. The specific damage was concentrated and comprehensive: Espenoza's first inning, Benson's collapse in the eighth when Caballaro hit a grand slam, and a Sacramento lineup that struck out fourteen times against a rotation the Hot Corner has not previously identified as particularly dangerous.
Game Three on May 2nd was the win that prevented a sweep and salvaged something from the Columbus road trip. Rubalcava held five and a third innings of two-run baseball, Alonzo hit a three-run home run off Gaias in the third, Cruz homered, Musco homered, and the Sacramento lineup scored eight across the first four innings before the bullpen held. Eight to six, Sacramento. Medina saved his eleventh. The win arrived against the weakest arm Columbus had started in the series and required eight total runs to beat six from Columbus, which tells the story of this matchup: Sacramento can outscore Columbus when the opponent's starter is hittable, and cannot score when Flores or Schlageter is holding the strike zone closed.
vs. Brooklyn, May 3-5 (0-3)
The Brooklyn series was the worst three-game stretch of the 1996 season. Andretti was solid in Game One — six and two-thirds innings, two runs, the good version — and the Prayers lost in ten innings when a pinch hitter named Kaeding hit a two-run double off Medina in the top of the tenth. Medina had been electric all year. He allowed one hit in two innings through nine. Then two singles, a two-run double, and the game was five to three. That was Medina's first loss of the season, and it was the kind of loss where pinning the blame on him seems disproportionate to what he had done in the previous twenty appearances.
Musco left Game One with a throwing arm injury, which reshuffled the infield for the remainder of the series and into the following week.
Game Two was St. Clair allowing three runs in seven innings against a Brooklyn lineup that started the series leading the AL East at nineteen and ten. He pitched adequately and still lost because Benson allowed two runs in the eighth and Brooklyn's bullpen held from there. Five to three, Brooklyn.
Game Three was Strickler seven innings of two-run baseball — genuinely good, a game score of sixty-one — and Medina allowing a bases-clearing Rastelli double in the ninth to turn a two-to-two tie into a five-to-two final. The Hot Corner will not lay this loss at Strickler's feet. He pitched well. The ninth inning closer gave up the game. Five to two, Brooklyn. The three-game sweep at Cathedral Stadium against the league's best team in the AL East was the lowest point of the 1996 season to this day.
vs. Seattle, May 7-9 (2-1)
Seattle's Scott Ritter hit four home runs in three games against Sacramento. He hit two in Game One — a home run in the eighth off Benson that turned a four-to-four tie into a seven-to-four Seattle lead — and ended as the Player of the Game twice in three appearances at Cathedral Stadium. Seattle won Game One seven to four. Rubalcava allowed two home runs in six innings in a game the lineup could not bail him out of.
Game Two was Andretti's best start since the El Paso outing — five and two-thirds innings, nine strikeouts, three groundouts, the specific command that makes him the second-best pitcher in this rotation at his peak. Lopez homered, Alonzo homered, the lineup scored eight runs, and Medina saved his twelfth. Eight to five, Sacramento.
Game Three turned out to be Espenoza's most difficult start of the month. Three home runs allowed in the first inning against Seattle — Barry, Ritter, Penela all connected — before the Sacramento offense scored eleven runs across the remaining innings and Lawson held for the win. Eleven to seven, Sacramento. The game score for Espenoza's four and a third innings was just thirty-seven, which means the win arrived entirely on the strength of the offense overcoming what the pitcher gave up in the early going. Berrios hit a two-run homer. Perez homered. Mollohan homered. Eleven runs on ten hits against five Seattle pitchers.
vs. San Jose, May 10-12 (2-1)
San Jose came to Cathedral Stadium at ten and twenty-five and won Game One eleven to five on a day when Strickler lasted three innings. Eight runs in three innings, eight in two-thirds at Portland — Strickler's bad-day pattern in 1996 is identical to the version the Hot Corner has documented for three years. Game One against San Jose was as bad as the Portland opener: same opponent tier, same specific collapse when the opposition gets multiple baserunners in front of big hitters early in the count. Eleven to five, San Jose.
Game Two was twenty to two. Sacramento scored eight in the first inning. Lozano homered twice. Rodriguez homered twice. Alonzo went four for six with three RBI. Cruz homered. Musco homered. The offense produced twenty runs on twenty-three hits against six San Jose pitchers, which is the largest single-game run total this team has produced in 1996 and the second largest since the 1995 Baltimore blowout. St. Clair won and moved to four and one. Twenty to two, Sacramento.
Game Three was Rubalcava allowing fifteen San Jose hits over six and two-thirds innings and somehow holding the Demons to three runs. Two or three of those hits were the soft-contact grounders that Rubalcava's sinker produces and which his defense turned into outs. He allowed fifteen hits and walked zero batters. The Hot Corner is logging that as evidence that Rubalcava's command — when he's throwing strikes — remains elite even when his stuff is getting hit. Seven to three, Sacramento, with Choi hitting his seventh home run.
@ Vancouver, May 13-14 (1-1)
Andretti won at Vancouver in Sacramento's first ever contest against expansion Sins — seven innings, ten hits, two runs, zero walks. The Vancouver lineup hit him well but could not convert. Choi homered for the eighth time. Rodriguez homered for the eighth time. Four to two, Sacramento.
Game Two was Espenoza pitching seven innings of zero earned-run baseball and losing three to zero because the Sacramento offense produced nothing against a Vancouver starter named Raul Montano who had never previously appeared in a Hot Corner article. Montano is three and zero. He threw five and a third innings, walked one, struck out zero, and held Sacramento to four hits. His ERA is 3.03. The Hot Corner did not flag Montano as a concern entering this series. I am filing this game as the reminder that any pitcher on any night can hold a lineup scoreless if the lineup is not prepared for the specific shape of his stuff, and that two-and-six against left-handed pitching is a structural problem that individual game losses like this one are built from. Montano throws left-handed.
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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS STRETCH
The left-handed pitching problem is now a confirmed structural concern — Two wins and six losses against left-handed starters through forty games. The most recent addition to the list: Montano, who threw five and a third scoreless innings in Vancouver on May 14th. The Hot Corner can identify a pattern without fully explaining it: the Sacramento lineup, built around right-handed power hitters, is producing a .250 batting average against right-handed starters and something substantially lower against lefties. The adjustment — whether mechanical preparation, lineup construction, or a specific at-bat approach against southpaw breaking balls — is a May priority for the coaching staff.
Strickler's two-start pattern is the most frustrating thing in baseball right now — Good start. Disaster start. Good start. Disaster start. The ERA is 7.13. The game scores from his good starts this year: seventy-four against Portland, sixty-eight against Phoenix, sixty-one against Brooklyn. The game scores from his bad starts: one against Portland, eight against San Jose in the most recent disaster. There is no middle. There is only the pitcher who held Portland to two hits in six innings and the pitcher who allowed eight runs in three innings to a ten-and-twenty-five team. The fragile designation suggests this variance has a physical component — perhaps a mechanical hitch that opens up when his shoulder is not fully recovered between starts, or a pitch sequencing issue that specific lineup types can expose. What the Hot Corner knows is that the two-start rotation cycle has been documented since last September and has not resolved into the consistent version the 1995 regular season promised.
Flores is the Sacramento puzzle that has no current solution — This is the fifth time we have watched Rich Flores go against Sacramento. His combined numbers: one run allowed across more than thirty innings pitched against this specific organization. His ERA against everyone else: 5.30. The specific gap between those two numbers represents something the coaching staff needs to solve before October, because Columbus is twenty-nine and eleven and has Flores available for a postseason start. The Hot Corner does not have video access and cannot identify the mechanical tell. What can be documented: the lineup has been held to one run in the most recent start, one run in the previous start at Columbus, and one run in his ALCS Game One appearance last October. The pattern has now repeated in three separate October-equivalent situations.
Choi and Rodriguez tied at eight home runs apiece, and this team's middle of the lineup is genuinely dangerous — The preseason prediction from the Hot Corner was that Rodriguez would break out at twenty-six years old with a Gold Glove already in his case. Eight home runs and twenty-four RBI through forty games is the breakout arriving on the predicted schedule. Choi at twenty-one years old with eight home runs in his first major league season — in less than a full starting role — is the development the Hot Corner has been tracking since the All-Star prospects game last August. The cleanup spot in the Sacramento batting order might legitimately be Rodriguez or Choi by June, which was not on anyone's preseason projection sheet.
Medina's first blown save and first loss in the same Brooklyn tenth inning requires appropriate context — He entered May with eleven saves and a 0.00 ERA. He now has thirteen saves, a 3.38 ERA, one loss, and one blown save. The blown save against Brooklyn was a two-run double to a pinch hitter he had not previously faced in an extra-inning game after he had already worked through the ninth cleanly. One bad outing does not reverse what Medina has built in the first forty games. The Hot Corner is treating it as a single data point rather than a trend signal, and will update the assessment if May provides additional negative evidence.
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AROUND THE LEAGUE
Columbus at twenty-nine and eleven is the best record in baseball. Charlotte at twenty-seven and twelve is the second best. Both teams are pulling away from the rest of the AL Central in ways that make the division title a two-team race. Sacramento's October bracket most likely runs through Columbus in the ALCS, and the current series record against them — one win and two losses — is worth logging as motivation.
Manuel Hernandez of Charlotte is batting .414 with twenty-five home runs and sixty-two RBI in forty games. Those numbers have a specific historical weight: sixty-two RBI before June is not a pace that any player has maintained before. The Hot Corner is watching Hernandez's production the way it watched Lopez's stolen base pace last year — as a potential historical benchmark that requires specific documentation.
Brooklyn at twenty-six and thirteen leads the AL East and swept Sacramento at home. Their shortstop Rastelli is batting .413. Fernando Garcia, the Brooklyn second base prospect ranked first overall in the preseason prospect list, is now in the major league lineup. The Priests were projected at eighty-nine wins by the preseason analysts and are currently pacing well ahead of that.
Milwaukee leads the NL Wild Card at twenty-five and fifteen. Los Angeles has fallen to twenty and eighteen after a seven-game winning streak followed by four consecutive losses.
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THE INBOX — Questions worth answering
From James Blackwood of Sacramento's Land Park neighborhood, a dentist who became a Prayers fan after moving from Phoenix and has been coming to Cathedral Stadium for two seasons, who asks: "Is Strickler a problem or are we overreacting?"
James, both things are partially true. The ERA of 7.13 is a problem. The specific starts that produced that ERA — Portland Game One and San Jose Game One — were against opponents who went on to lose the series. The team is still winning more than it is losing. But the pattern is real: something is different about the days when Strickler's command disappears in the first inning, and that something is happening regularly enough to constitute a structural concern rather than a random variance event. The Hot Corner's position: Strickler is not a problem in the sense that the rotation needs him replaced. He is a problem in the sense that nobody knows which version shows up every five days, and in October that uncertainty becomes the defining variable in a game that the Prayers cannot afford to lose.
From Nina Petrova of Elk Grove, a software engineer and second-year Prayers fan who asks: "Should we be worried that Columbus is running away with everything?"
Nina, no — not for the division race, and not even for October in the way the question implies. Sacramento is three games ahead of Seattle in the AL West and that gap is manageable and likely to grow as Seattle faces tougher opponents in May. Columbus winning the AL Central does not affect Sacramento's playoff path directly; the AL West winner and the AL Central winner are on the same side of the bracket, which means Sacramento and Columbus would meet in the ALCS. The Hot Corner is watching Columbus's record because a team that goes twenty-nine and eleven in the first forty games has demonstrated genuine excellence, and the ALCS against that team would be more difficult than last year's version. But worried is not the right word. Prepared is the right word, and preparation starts now rather than in September.
From Tommy Nakagawa of Citrus Heights, a high school history teacher and Prayers fan since 1988 who asks: "What do you make of Choi — is he the real deal?"
Tommy, eight home runs in forty games at twenty-one years old in his first major league season after arriving in the fifth inning of Game Two on April 2nd is the real deal by every reasonable definition of that phrase. The Hot Corner predicted Choi before July, upgraded the timeline to before June in the spring preview, and watched him arrive April 2nd. The specific assessment that matters entering May: his power grades at ninety-three in the scouting database and his eye discipline at seventy-seven, which means the swing decisions are already close to major-league caliber even before his plate approach fully develops. The twenty-one-year-old who is currently tied for the team lead in home runs will be a better hitter at twenty-four than he is now. The Hot Corner noted this in August of last year. Everything since has been confirmation.
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Twenty-four and sixteen. Three games ahead of Seattle. The left-handed pitching problem is documented and unresolved. Strickler's variance remains the rotation's defining uncertainty. Choi and Rodriguez are tied for the team lead in home runs. And Columbus, the ALCS opponent the Hot Corner has been tracking since the schedule was announced, has run to twenty-nine and eleven while Sacramento has gone six and eight over the same fourteen games.
Las Vegas and Nashville come to Cathedral Stadium next. Then the road to Charlotte in late May. The schedule will provide answers whether the team is ready for them or not.
Got a question for the mailbag? Find the Hot Corner wherever you get your podcasts.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.