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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May 15 – May 30, 1996 | Games 41–54 | Thirty-Four and Twenty
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ANDRETTI IS THE BEST PITCHER IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE RIGHT NOW
I want to say something plainly, without hedging: Bernardo Andretti is eight and two with a 2.79 ERA, tied for the most wins in baseball, and threw a complete game at Washington on May 23rd on one hundred and five pitches without walking a single batter. He is thirty-five years old. I have spent three seasons documenting his inconsistency, his good months and bad ones, the starts where everything worked and the ones where nothing did. What I am watching now is not a hot streak. It is resolution. The swing in performance that I tracked for three years has not appeared in nine starts. The numbers are no longer building toward a conclusion — they are the conclusion.
Everything else happened around that central fact. Strickler threw back-to-back complete games. Musco tied the Sacramento regular season game record with five hits against Charlotte. Lopez is at twenty-nine stolen bases in fifty-four games. The team went ten and four and leads the AL West by eight games over a Seattle club that is four games under .500. We are thirty-four and twenty and the rotation is carrying us.
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DID YOU CATCH THAT GAME? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY
vs. Las Vegas, May 15-16 (1-1)
Strickler threw a nine-inning shutout on May 15th. Three hits, seven strikeouts, one walk. Cruz hit a three-run home run in the eighth. Rodriguez and Hernandez also went deep. Nine to nothing, Sacramento. The version of Strickler who just pitched carries a 1.01 ERA over his last three starts, which is the most dramatic single-month reversal I have tracked in this rotation since I started covering this organization.
May 16th belonged to Las Vegas. St. Clair allowed seven runs in four and two-thirds innings — Papi hit a three-run shot, Reddick went deep for two — and the lineup's late home runs from Perez and Cruz were too little too late. Lopez was held out of the lineup with an arm injury that had not yet been formally diagnosed. Seven to four, Las Vegas.
vs. Nashville, May 17-19 (3-0)
Three games, three wins. Rubalcava held five innings on May 17th before Prieto picked up his first win and Medina saved his fifteenth. Lozano hit a go-ahead triple in the sixth, Lopez stole his twenty-second base. Three to two.
Andretti on May 18th went six innings of zero earned runs while the offense put up twelve on thirteen hits against a Nashville staff that used four pitchers and still couldn't find the strike zone. Lopez scored four times. Perez homered in the first. Mollohan homered later and then hurt his elbow running the bases. Twelve to two.
Espenoza closed the sweep on May 19th with seven and a third innings of two-run ball. Mollohan homered despite the elbow — which I respect enormously — Rodriguez hit his tenth home run, Choi doubled in two in the eighth. Six to two. Seven consecutive wins.
@ Washington, May 21-23 (3-0)
I will let the numbers carry this section because they do not need decoration.
Strickler, May 21st: eight and two-thirds innings, one run, a game score of seventy-eight against a Washington lineup that was twenty-three and twenty-four. Six to one.
Rubalcava, May 22nd: seven and two-thirds innings, three runs, his fourth win of the year. Lozano hit two home runs. Lopez homered. Nine to three.
Andretti, May 23rd: nine innings, two runs, no walks, one hundred and five pitches, complete game. Seven to two.
Three games, three starts of six-plus innings, three wins. The three pitchers combined for twenty-five and a third innings against a major league lineup. I have not seen this rotation pitch like this in back-to-back-to-back appearances in two years of coverage. The Washington series was the best three-game rotation performance of the 1996 season.
@ Charlotte, May 24-26 (2-1)
Manuel Hernandez ended the winning streak in Game One. He hit two home runs off Espenoza in the sixth — the second a three-run shot — and Charlotte's starter Zeiders held us to three runs across eight and two-thirds innings. Seven to three, Charlotte. I will note that Zeiders was better than his last outing against us, which was documented last October. The line in 1996: eight and two-thirds innings, three earned runs, seven strikeouts. Better than last year. Not untouchable.
May 25th was the most chaotic baseball game I have covered in this column's existence. Musco went five for five — two doubles, two singles, a home run — tying the Sacramento regular season game record. Hernandez hit two more home runs for Charlotte, giving him four for the series. The score was eleven to eleven in the ninth when Francisco Hernandez, pinch hitting, hit a grand slam off Rodriguez. Then Hernandez of Charlotte answered back in the bottom of the ninth off Medina to force extras. Then Berrios singled in two in the tenth. Thirteen to eleven, Sacramento, four hours and two minutes, a game score for St. Clair of thirty-seven. I need a coffee just writing about it.
May 26th was Strickler throwing nine innings of two-run baseball against the second-best team in the American League. Charlotte's Gonzalez was better — eight shutout innings — but Lopez tripled in the ninth, Cruz drove him home, Perez sacrificed in the tenth, and we won three to two on five total hits. That game, won on stolen bases and sacrifice flies against excellent pitching, is the October skill I have been waiting to see this lineup demonstrate.
@ Seattle, May 28-30 (1-2)
Scott Ritter has now hit four home runs against Sacramento this season. He hit two more on May 28th off Rubalcava in the first inning before the game was two pitches old. The lineup managed two runs against Schilder in eight innings. Eight to two, Seattle.
Andretti on May 29th survived a Lara three-run home run in the second and held eight innings while Perez went four for five and drove in two. Five to three. Medina saved his seventeenth.
Espenoza on May 30th allowed a Strahan bases-clearing triple and a Ritter home run and the deficit was too large. Three and five on the year for Espenoza, which reflects a pattern of starts that I would describe as wildly inconsistent — not unlike Strickler's, now that I look at both files side by side. Seven to four, Seattle.
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THE STORIES THAT DEFINE THIS STRETCH
Andretti eight and two at 2.79 ERA deserves every superlative available — Seven consecutive wins. A 2.48 ERA over his last nine starts. Two complete games. Co-leader in wins across all of baseball. The performance inconsistency I documented from 2014 through early 1996 has been absent for nine consecutive starts, which at some point stops being a streak and starts being a new baseline. I believe we have crossed that threshold. If the October version of Andretti resembles the May version, this rotation is the deepest it has ever been.
Strickler's three-start run of 1.01 ERA is the answer to months of questions — His ERA of 4.74 does not reflect the pitcher who just threw nine innings in Charlotte or eight and two-thirds in Washington. The good-start Strickler and the disaster-start Strickler have always been the same pitcher, and the difference has always been mysterious. Right now the mystery is resolving in the right direction. I am not ready to declare the problem solved, but I am ready to say that three consecutive quality starts against Las Vegas, Washington, and Charlotte is a meaningful data point in favor of the solved hypothesis.
Musco tying the game record with five hits needs to live in this column permanently — Five for five at Charlotte. Two doubles, two singles, a home run. Thirty-six years old, three injury interruptions in fifty-four games, and when he takes the field he is hitting .324. I have been covering this organization since 1993 and I have never written a sentence about Edwin Musco that did not include some version of the words "despite" or "although." May 25th, 2016 — no caveats required.
Rodriguez's tenth home run makes the preseason breakout prediction official — I said in March he would break out at twenty-six. Ten home runs and twenty-nine RBI through fifty-four games says I was right. He is on pace for thirty-eight home runs and one hundred and ten RBI, which would be the best individual offensive season in Sacramento history at the position. I will allow myself one full paragraph of vindication and then move on.
Lopez at twenty-nine stolen bases is on historical pace — Twenty-nine steals through fifty-four games extrapolates to approximately eighty-seven over a full season. His career high was sixty-nine last year. The spring mechanical regression I flagged in April? Gone. The power is back, the average is back, and the stolen base total should be a league-wide conversation by the All-Star break.
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AROUND THE LEAGUE
Columbus is thirty-eight and sixteen. Charlotte is thirty-five and eighteen. Those two teams are in a different area code from the rest of the AL. Sacramento leads the AL West by eight over a Seattle team in the process of becoming a non-factor. The division title is not in question. October is.
Manuel Hernandez is batting .400 with thirty-one home runs and eighty-one RBI in fifty-four games. He had eighty-one RBI through May. I want to say that again. Eighty-one RBI before June. I have watched professional baseball for a long time and I do not have a comparison frame for what he is doing. I am simply documenting it.
Boston fired Bob Kay on May 30th. The Messiahs are twenty and thirty-three. The Hot Corner extends its condolences to Kay, who was given a sub-par roster and told to win with it.
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THE INBOX — Questions worth answering
From Sal Ferreira of Midtown Sacramento, a man who professionally appraises vintage pinball machines for insurance companies and has been a Prayers fan since the Fernando Salazar days mostly because the bar across from his shop had the game on, who asks: "Is Andretti actually going to win the Cy Young?"
Sal, he's eight and two with a 2.79 ERA in May of 1996 and I'm sitting here typing his name on a Cy Young ballot right now. Ask me again in September if I've changed my mind. I won't have.
From Leanne Portillo of Rancho Murieta, a competitive chili cook who has placed second at the state level twice — ask her about the judging and she will tell you — and who started following the Prayers after her ex-husband bet against them in 1994 and lost magnificently, who asks: "Is the division lead actually safe or are we pretending?"
Leanne, we're eight games up on a Seattle team that is four under .500 and declining. We are not pretending. The lead is safe. Focus on the chili.
From Ray Okonkwo of Sacramento's Oak Park neighborhood, a night-shift dispatcher for a plumbing emergency service who has heard every possible variation of the word "flooded" at two in the morning, and who asks simply: "Is Musco going to survive the whole season?"
Ray, probably not all of it in one uninterrupted stretch — but when he plays, he's hitting .324 with eight home runs and tying game records. I'll take that deal at thirty-six. Orozco covers the gaps. The rotation covers the rest.
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Portland to close the month, then St. Louis, then Albuquerque. Andretti might pitche next on five days' rest. The rotation is the best story in Sacramento baseball since the calendar turned to May, and I intend to keep covering it like it is.
Thirty-four wins and twenty losses through fifty-four games. Eight ahead of Seattle. The best ERA in the American League.
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.