Mariners Analysis

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Morrow last night

While I'm happy for Brandon Morrow last night, both personally and for the team, I can't understand how anyone can really be impressed by his performance. Against Texas we saw even more evidence why the young man has no business being in the majors right now.

Let's recap the situation. Morrow comes in for Baek, runners on 1st & 2nd, M's clinging to hope and trying to avoid an even longer losing streak.

Morrow promptly uncorks a wild pitch, advancing both runners into scoring position.

After some quick debate, Hargrove loads the bases and prays.

The formula the rest of the night was simple- watch Morrow throw as hard as he can while he hopes the Rangers can't connect with his fastball. Amazingly enough, it worked well enough until Putz was called in to bail him out. I'm sure Morrow's 95-97 mph fastball must have looked even faster after replacing Baek & his junkball repertoire, and in some ways it seems like a perfect situation. Young kid out of college comes in and stops losing streak. How could you not be excited?

But the kid is so unpolished it's embarrassing he's even on the club!! Anyone with any baseball sense can see he has one pitch (fastball) and everything else is a work-in-progress.

A good example would be Lowe last summer. He also sported a 95+ mph fast ball, but he had command of an offspeed pitch that made him ridiculously effective as a reliever. If it wasn't for his genetic condition in his arm, he would be one of the top relievers in the division, if not the AL. He was no fluke, the kid was good.

Morrow is not Lowe of last summer.

If a certain reliever was not traded over the winter (Soriano) the club wouldn't have this problem (no power arms in the bullpen) and we wouldn't be screwing around with a top prospect in this reckless manner.

Last night Morrow was lucky, not good.