{"id":90687,"date":"2022-10-08T06:49:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-08T06:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mariners-shut-out-toronto-4-0-for-seattles-first-postseason-victory-since-2001\/"},"modified":"2022-10-08T06:49:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-08T06:49:00","slug":"mariners-shut-out-toronto-4-0-for-seattles-first-postseason-victory-since-2001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mariners-shut-out-toronto-4-0-for-seattles-first-postseason-victory-since-2001\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners shut out Toronto 4-0 for Seattle’s first postseason victory since 2001"},"content":{"rendered":"
Noelvi Marte spent August and September slashing .292\/.397\/.443 for Cincinnati’s High-A affiliate, good for a 138 wRC+. And I’m nothing but happy for him. The co-headliner in Seattle’s blockbuster trade-deadline deal for Luis Castillo can have a Hall of Fame career, and I’ll wish him nothing but the best. That’s because what Castillo gave me today was a gift I’ll treasure for the rest of my life: 7.1 innings of shutout baseball against one of the best hitting teams in the league to secure the Mariners’ first postseason victory since 2001.<\/p>\n
To be fair, Castillo wasn’t exactly in a pressure cooker after what the Mariners’ hitters did to open the ball game. In his first-ever postseason plate appearance, Julio Rodr\u00edguez got hit with a two-seamer. We prepared to panic, but Julio seemed fine. With one out, Eugenio Su\u00e1rez flipped a line drive down the right field line for an RBI double. Cal Raleigh, ever the drama queen, then worked a full count before yanking a Beef Boy Bomb over the right field fence to make the score 3-0 in the first inning.<\/p>\n
After that, the game belonged to Luis Castillo. Staked to a three-run lead, he came out and averaged 100 mph on both his sinker and his four-seamer in the bottom of the first. I’m going to repeat that because it’s bananas. He averaged\u2014averaged<\/em>\u2014100 mph on both\u2014both<\/em>\u2014 his sinker and his four-seamer. The nerds call that a Kobayashi Maru.<\/p>\n Castillo spent most of the game pitching to contact and letting the Mariners defense do its thing. Alejandro Kirk led off the second inning with a base hit, but it was quickly erased by a double play that Su\u00e1rez made look easy despite getting the ball on an in-between hop. In the third, George Springer hit a laser into the gap, but Mitch Haniger took the perfect route to get to the ball in time to keep Springer to a single. Seeing as Bo Bichette followed that up with another base hit, Mitch’s play likely saved a run. By the time Castillo was through four innings, he’d only thrown 51 pitches, walking off the mound with all the confidence of Arthur Fonzarelli.<\/p>\n The Mariners continued to piece things together against an uncharacteristically wild Alek Manoah. Although he averages sliders just a quarter of the time, he bumped that up to 37% today, since he had no idea where his fastballs were going. Nowhere was this made more clear than the top of the fifth when broadcaster Dave Fleming began the inning by saying Manoah had settled in, and Manoah promptly throwing a ball on the other side of the batter’s box. Here are Manoah’s fastballs:<\/p>\n