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 6 – April 19, 1998 | The First Two Weeks | Five and Six | Strickler Is Struggling
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PORTLAND THROWS A NO-HITTER, MUSCO IS HURT AGAIN, STRICKLER IS ZERO AND TWO
Eduardo Reyes is a Portland Apocalypse pitcher. Portland finished sixty-one and one hundred and one last season. Reyes entered April 8th with a career record that did not generate significant fear. Over the next ten innings, he threw one hundred and seven pitches and did not allow a single hit. He walked two batters and struck out seven. McCrary allowed a McKnight walk-off single in the bottom of the tenth and Sacramento lost one to nothing without ever reaching base.
The specifics of the defeat matter less than the broader fact it illustrates: two weeks into 1998, the Sacramento Prayers are being no-hit by a pitcher on a sixty-one-win team and sitting fifth in the American League wildcard race at five and six. This is a cold start, not a crisis, and I want to be precise about that distinction. But it is worth documenting honestly before the calendar offers an opportunity to forget it happened.
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DID YOU CATCH THOSE GAMES? — WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY
@ Portland, April 6-8 (2-1)
Rubalcava opened the season with eight innings of two-hit shutout ball against Portland. Benson saved it cleanly. Lopez went two for five. A tidy, professional, expected win to open the year. Two to nothing.
April 7th produced the most memorable offensive game of the first two weeks: Choi hit three home runs in a seven-to-nothing win, driving in six runs while scoring three times. Andretti went seven and a third innings without allowing a run. His ERA through one start: 0.00. The offense that generates this kind of performance — Choi at five total bases per at-bat on three separate occasions — can score against anyone. The game notes also contain a line I want to document carefully: Edwin Musco was injured running the bases in the eighth inning. The nature of the injury is not specified. It is his fourth injury in twelve months. He appeared as a pinch hitter on April 19th with an at-bat that resulted in a walk. He was not in the lineup for most of the intervening games.
April 8th has been described. Ten innings, no hits. Sacramento's starters through three games: Rubalcava eight shutout innings, Andretti seven and a third shutout innings, Strickler eight shutout innings against Portland — and Sacramento went two and one because McCrary allowed a walk-off single in extra innings when the bullpen had burned through every available arm protecting a no-decision for Strickler. The loss was brutal but the pitching was not. The offense managed three hits across nine innings before Portland's bullpen took over.
@ San Jose, April 10-11 (1-1)
Espenoza started April 10th with five innings, two earned runs, and a win that the bullpen — McCrary holding one and two-thirds, Esparza closing two and a third — finished cleanly. Cruz scored four runs. Lozano went three for five with three RBI. Shinohara hit a two-run homer in the eighth. Eight to two, Sacramento.
April 11th was a ten-inning loss in the rain: Rubalcava five and two-thirds, Gonzalez blowing an inherited runner, Medina holding one clean inning, then Musselman allowing a walk-off ground out by Avitia. The game was three to two, Sacramento entering the final inning after a tie was established in the seventh. This was a winnable game that the bullpen converted into a loss attributed to Musselman. Four to three, San Jose.
@ Seattle, April 13-15 (2-1)
Pedro Hernandez — the pitcher with a career record well beneath replacement level who has beaten Sacramento twice now — was better than Strickler on April 13th. Strickler went five and two-thirds innings and allowed two runs while walking four batters. Hernandez went six and two-thirds innings and allowed one. Three to one, Seattle. Strickler is zero and one.
April 14th: Sato threw seven and a third innings of two-hit shutout ball in his Sacramento debut and won his first game. Choi hit his fourth homer. Lozano drove in two. Five to nothing. The fifth starter acquired in the Charlotte trade performed as well as the third starter on the Opening Day roster. I make no further editorial comment on Sato's immediate contribution other than to note it.
April 15th: Espenoza threw seven and a third innings against Seattle without allowing a run. He is now two and zero with a 1.46 ERA. Medina held two-thirds of an inning cleanly. Benson saved his second. Three to nothing, Sacramento. Espenoza is evidently the best pitcher on this staff through two weeks.
@ Philadelphia, April 17-19 (0-3)
Three games in Philadelphia. Zero wins. The series is worth examining specifically because Philadelphia is nine and three and the best team in the AL East at this stage, and the losses are not all equivalent.
April 17th: Rubalcava went seven innings and gave up a Mendoza three-run homer in the sixth. Jang went eight and two-thirds innings and struck out ten. Five to three, Philadelphia. This is the kind of defeat that is acceptable — the opponent's starter was excellent, the deficit was created by one at-bat, and Rubalcava's ERA through two starts remains at 2.18.
April 18th: Strickler allowed six runs in two and two-thirds innings. His ERA is now 4.41. He is zero and two. The Garcia three-run homer in the first inning established the context from which the offense never recovered. Six to three. This is the bad version.
April 19th: Sato allowed three runs in five innings, McCrary was injured while pitching in the sixth, and a Trujillo two-run double off McCrary provided the decisive margin. Four to two, Philadelphia. McCrary's injury status is listed at the time being as unknown with a diagnosis pending. If the elbow trouble has re-emerged as a concern, the bullpen loses its most experienced depth arm.
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WHAT THE FIRST TWO WEEKS TELL US
Strickler is the primary concern
He is zero and two with a 4.41 ERA and his two losses both followed the same pattern: a multi-run inning early in the game, typically from a ball left over the middle of the plate in a hitter's count, followed by a competitive remainder of the start that arrives too late. Against Philadelphia on April 18th, the damage came in less than three innings. Against Seattle on April 13th, his walk total — four in five and two-thirds innings — drove his pitch count past one hundred before the sixth inning. The rotation enters the week with Espenoza and Sato at combined three wins and zero losses, Rubalcava at one win and one loss with a 2.18 ERA, Andretti at one win and zero losses, and Strickler at zero wins and two losses. The top of the rotation is functioning. The centerpiece of it is not.
Medina's early returns are positive
He has appeared in four games, allowed zero earned runs, and his ERA stands at 1.42. Small sample, but the profile of his appearances — clean leverage innings, consistent command, a fastball-slider combination that is producing swing-and-miss — matches what the preseason ratings projected. If this holds for another month, the closer situation that defined October 1997 resolves itself naturally.
The no-hitter was real and notable and also not the end of the world
Sacramento was no-hit for ten innings on April 8th by a pitcher on a team that lost one hundred and one games last year. That is accurate and embarrassing. It is also one game in one hundred and sixty-two. The offense scored seven runs the day before and eight runs the day after. The specific application here: early-season results from offenses don't reliably predict full-season results, and a lineup with Choi, Cruz, Lozano, and Perez does not forget how to hit in April. Lopez is hitting .088 and Rodriguez is at .100. Both will correct. The no-hitter is filed accurately in the record and I am not reading long-term conclusions into it.
Musco's injury status is a genuine roster concern
This is his fourth injury in twelve months. The body of evidence — torn meniscus, concussion, two running injuries — suggests his availability can no longer be assumed across a full season. He appeared as a pinch hitter on April 19th. He has not started. The transaction executed on April 21st — trading Scott Crook and Art Combs along with two third-round picks to Long Beach for twenty-five-year-old center fielder Victor Durango and a first-round pick — is the organizational response to the availability concerns that now cluster around the middle of the roster.
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THE BREAKING TRANSACTION
The organization dealt Crook, Combs, and two third-round picks to Long Beach in exchange for Victor Durango and the twenty-third pick in the upcoming draft. Durango is twenty-five and plays center field. The organizational rationale is legible: with Lopez struggling through a slow start, Musco uncertain, and Chavarria sidelined by a sinus infection, the outfield depth needed reinforcement. Getting a first-round pick in addition to a major league player represents a trade outcome that strengthens both the present and the pipeline. I want to see more of Durango before rendering a verdict, but the acquisition logic is sound.
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THE INBOX
From Hana Bruckner of Davis, a ceramics professor, who asks: "Is Strickler broken?"
No. Two bad starts out of two doesn't change what seventeen years of data says about Brian Strickler. What it does mean is that the version that appeared four times in 1997 — the version that loses a game in the first two innings — has shown up twice in April 1998. I am watching the next start closely.
From Marcus Aguilar of Sacramento's Greenhaven neighborhood, an electrician, who asks: "After the no-hitter, should Sacramento fans be worried?"
They should be appropriately unsettled. A no-hitter from a pitcher on a last-place team in April is not the signal that a championship rotation sends. But this lineup scored fifteen runs in the two surrounding games. The worry is proportion: this doesn't predict a bad season, but it does belong honestly in the ledger.
From Kwame Asare of Sacramento's Land Park neighborhood, a data analyst, who asks: "It's been three weeks and Musco is already hurt again. Is there a point at which the organization has to move on?"
The April 21st trade is the early answer to your question. They didn't wait. Durango arriving suggests the front office is managing the Musco situation proactively rather than hoping the body holds. Whether Musco reclaims the starting shortstop role when healthy, or whether Rodriguez keeps it, is a decision that will be made with whatever information exists in May. Right now, the organization appears to be building depth around the assumption that Musco cannot be relied upon for a full season.
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San Jose comes to Sacramento starting April 21st for the season home opener. The rotation rests. The lineup needs to wake up. Lopez has one hit in his last fifteen at-bats. Strickler needs a start that puts April 18th behind him.
Five and six. Fourteen games into 1998. New logo has been unveiled.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.