David Aardsma
Written by Cautious, Sunday May 09 2010
While watching the end of the May 8th game against the Anaheim Angels, which ended in a 4-3 loss for the Seattle Mariners in the 10th inning, I was struck by something a resident had told me when I started watching the Mariners. He said, "I have never understood why Seattle considers David Aardsma to be such a fantastic pitcher. He throws fastballs right down the tube every game, and yet no one seems to catch on." I sat and pondered this, after a while I saw he was right. Game after game Aardsma is called in and throws 4-seamers right over the plate and yet every batter was lost.
In the past year this has changed. As the season has progressed these high fastballs are becoming a rather large nuisance for the Mariners. For a club that is already struggling to put a run on the board the last thing they need is to give up a ninth inning home run, yet Aardsma is becoming quite familiar with that. Times past fans could laugh and chuckle when Aardsma walked two batters in the ninth or got out of a bases loaded situation saying, "Oh, he was just spicing up the inning." Now days, that isn't as easy.
Though perhaps not the best example, tonight's game gives a good look into the quality of pitching the Aardsma has been giving. At the top of the tenth inning batter Bobby Abreu recieved six consecutive fastballs. This may not seem odd to some, but after watching four or five batters recieve this same treatment it gets rather old. In his last 10 appearances he has lost 3 of them for the Mariners. This is mainly due to his strategy which has been referred to by Jeff Sullivan of SBNation as a fly ball strategy, putting huge amounts of deep fly balls into the field. Sullivan mentions how this can work in stadiums such as Safeco but once out on the road, it can become very dangerous.
As the Mariners continue to slide one can not blame their losing season on David Aardsma. However, one must wonder with relief pitchers like Shawn Kelley and Brandon League waiting in the bullpen: Is he helping?
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