Bryce Miller keeps throwing heaters, continues impressive start as Mariners beat A’s
Bryce Miller’s logic when it comes to pitch selection and game plan isn’t complicated.
In his easy southern drawl, he said a few weeks back: “I reckon I’ll keep throwing heaters until they start hitting them hard. I’m going to stay with my best pitch.”
As the first team to face the Mariners’ hard-throwing rookie for the second time this season, the Oakland A’s came into Wednesday’s game expecting Miller to throw mostly fastballs.
It didn’t matter.
Using 80 percent fastballs, because, well, that’s what he does, Miller tossed six scoreless innings to help lead the Mariners to a comfortable 6-1 victory over the hapless A’s.
Why change for the sake of change?
Miller’s fastball is his best pitch. Teams know it’s coming, but the high spin rate and quality placement at the top of the strike zone make it almost impossible to hit squarely.
Of Miller’s 90 pitches, 73 were four-seam fastballs that averaged 95 mph. Of those 73 fastballs, the A’s swung at 40 of them and watched 12 of them for called strikes. They whiffed on 11, fouled off 19 and put 10 of them into play with one soft single.
Oakland didn’t really threaten to score off Miller, who allowed just two hits with a walk and a hit by pitch.
In the third inning, Aledmys Diaz jumped on a curveball and hit a hard one-hopper that handcuffed J.P. Crawford at shortstop for an infield single. Miller then walked Tony Kemp to move a runner into scoring position. But he got Esteury Ruiz to hit into a force out and then fielded Ryan Noda’s odd two-out bunt and flipped it to Haggerty to end the inning.
The Mariners finally gave him a lead in the fourth inning against lefty Ken Waldichuk, who was scheduled to start, but entered the game in the second inning after the A’s used Austin Pruitt as an opener.
After loading the bases with one out in the second inning off Waldichuk, the Mariners failed to score a run. They didn’t make that mistake the fourth. With one out and the bases loaded, Sam Haggerty, playing in place of the injured Ty France, roped a double into the left field corner to score a run. Seattle continued to tack on runs. J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodriguez followed with run-scoring singles to make it 4-0. Cal Raleigh, who led off the inning with a single would come around to hit again and work a four-pitch walk to force in a run.
Given a lead, Miller retired the A’s in order in the fifth and ran into a little trouble in the sixth. He hit Ruiz with a pitch as he squared around to bunt and then gave up a bloop single to left. But unfazed and wearing the same look as always, Miller got Seth Brown to fly out to right and struck out Shea Langeliers swinging on, what else, a fastball that ripped across the top of the strike zone at 95 mph.
Miller improved to 3-1 in five starts this season, lowering his ERA to 1.15 on the season. In 31 1/3 innings, he’s struck out 28 batters with three walks while not allowing a homer.
His next start will come Monday vs. the New York Yankees.