SEATTLE — As the season winds to a close, the Rangers and interim Manager Don Wakamatsu are hoping to get just a few final glimpses at a handful of Rangers — both rookies and veterans — on whom a decision will need to be made sometime between the final out Sunday and Opening Day 2019.
One such player is Ariel Jurado, whose 2018 performance has shown flashes of hope, but has generally pointed toward a Nashville assignment when the team breaks camp next season.
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Jurado, obviously, hopes to remain in the big leagues rather than return to Triple A.
He did his best Thursday night to argue his own case, pitching six shutout innings against the Mariners, allowing just two hits and walking none. And while Jurado only struck out three, he mixed his pitches well. Yes, he still threw his sinker 45% of the time, but he also mixed in a four-seam fastball (22.5%), a changeup (17.5%) and a slider and curveball six times each (7.5%). More importantly, he threw them all for strikes — 51 of his 80 pitches on the night were either in the zone or swung at.
The results — six innings, two hits, no walks, and three strikeouts — were brilliant, but it’s important to temper the excitement with some context: both the Rangers and Mariners are out of playoff contention, but the Mariners spent much of the first half of the season looking like a legitimate wild-card contender and weren’t eliminated until four days ago, on Sept. 23.
It’s possible there was some letdown from the home team.
Still, you can only win the games you play, and the Mariners lineup was still pretty full of recognizable names:
The Mariners kick off the final series of the season tonight vs. the Rangers. #TrueToTheBlue
📝 | https://t.co/RkKpGd5cp8 pic.twitter.com/GoyhHq9e9I
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) September 28, 2018
“The most important thing is I had everything working,” Jurado said after the game through an interpreter. “That’s what was good about my night. I was using my changeup and my slider in every count. They were all working, that’s why I was comfortable.”
Jurado said Bartolo Colon suggested that he use his four-seam fastball more often.
Colon may be struggling in the second half, but he’s been in the big leagues since Jurado was 15 months old. When he makes a suggestion, you try it. When it works, well — maybe you get a chance to keep trying it next year.
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“That decision is not up to me,” Jurado said. “The most important thing is I gained experience. You can’t get that in the minor leagues.”
“Well if I was scouting him tonight, yeah (he’s ready),” Wakamatsu laughed before answering the question with a bit more diplomacy. “You’re talking about young guys. So if you see it one time, it starts to make it (real). … We’re not going to make that decision right now, but that’s what we’re looking for is to be able to get signs that say ‘Hey, going into spring training, I remember that game he threw there.'”
Meanwhile, the Rangers offense was also pretty dormant for much of the night until a seventh-inning rally that featured such heroes as Ryan Rua (who hit a one-out double to start the rally), Ronald Guzmán (single to score Rua, the game’s first run), and Hanser Alberto (who hit a ground rule double — one of three hits on the night). But thanks to the ground rules (runner from first only advances two bases), the Rangers’ second run didn’t come until after an intentional walk to Rougned Odor, when Isiah Kiner-Falefa was hit in the helmet with a 95 mph fastball.
Speaking of Kiner-Falefa, he’s another of the young players the Rangers want to see as much as possible before season’s end. He’s had an encouraging rookie campaign, and now Texas needs to figure out if he’s ready to be a full-time catcher, or if they prefer to keep him in a super-utility role.
Earlier in the day, Wakamatsu had been asked if Kiner-Falefa was ready to be a full-time catcher in the big leagues. He answered without hesitation: “No.”
But he quickly clarified that catching at a big-league level is hard, even for guys who have done it their whole life. Kiner-Falefa got a really late start, and while he’s making up for it with savant-level improvements, there are just no shortcuts for experience.
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After the game, however, it sounded like Wakamatsu had seen a breakthrough.
“We had a lot of questions (earlier today) about Kiner’s development. I thought he did an outstanding job of leading these guys (tonight). It looked like he was a little bit looser back there and just kind of settled in; he did a fantastic job of catching this ballgame.”
Another Ranger getting a look was Connor Sadzeck, who pitched a two-strikeout eighth inning, allowing just one walk. Sadzeck has pitched 9 1/3 innings since being called up this month, and has thus far bent, but not broken: sure, he has walked 10 and struck out seven, giving up five hits, but he has also allowed a grand total of zero earned runs.
Wakamatsu also pointed out another development:
“If you got his times to the plate, they were under 1.1 seconds, and throwing 99 mph,” Wakamatsu said. “It takes a long time for guys to understand that we can still stay compact, let the arm catch up and still throw hard with strikes. He started out in a 1.5-6 area when he first came up.”
Tomorrow, the Rangers will do one more last-chance evaluation, as Martin Pérez gets his final start of the season. The Rangers will have to decide whether to pick up his $7.5 million option for 2019. That seemed unlikely as recently as a month ago, but Pérez took his demotion to the bullpen well, and flourished. He’ll get one more chance to impress, going up against Wade LeBlanc on Friday night at Safeco Field.
(Top photo of Ariel Jurado by Abbie Parr/Getty Images)
