THE HOT CORNER
Baseball coverage from the inside Sacramento Prayers and the FBL
By Claude Playball | Baseball Insider & Analyst | Host, "Hot Corner" Podcast
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May 30 June 11, 2000 | Forty-Five and Nineteen | Shinohara's Breakout | Espenoza Bounces Back
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THE PRAYERS WON NINE CONSECUTIVE GAMES BEFORE ALBUQUERQUE ENDED THE STREAK ON JUNE 7
Eleven wins in thirteen games. Two losses one to Albuquerque, a team forty games under .500, when the offense scored nine runs and still lost; and one where Ebizo Suzuki held Sacramento to three hits over eight innings in a performance that should serve as a scouting reminder about what a true FBL ace looks like against this lineup. Sacramento went 11-2 in the stretch and it wasn't particularly close.
Nine consecutive wins. The streak ran from May 30th through June 6th, spanning three cities and five opponents, and produced some of the cleanest baseball Sacramento has played all year. The rotation went deep into games. The offense manufactured runs from multiple positions in the lineup. The defense stretched thin by injuries held together well enough to keep margins in Sacramento's favor.
Forty-five and nineteen. Detroit is 45-20. The two best teams in the American League are separated by one game in the loss column, which means every game between now and October has compounding consequence.
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DID YOU CATCH THOSE GAMES? WHAT THE SCORECARDS SAY
@ Seattle, May 30 June 1 (3-0)
May 30th: Rubalcava held Seattle to four hits in six and one-third innings. Sacramento entered the eighth inning tied at one, and Blake sent up to pinch hit for Garcia delivered a three-run homer against reliever Flanigan. Benson closed for his eleventh save. Four to two.
May 31st: Cruz seven and one-third innings, one earned run, nine strikeouts. The offense added insurance runs late Alvarez and DeVore each homered off Harding in the ninth but the outcome was decided much earlier. Navarro's sixth-inning double put Sacramento ahead to stay. Six to one.
June 1st: Strickler pitched five clean innings before Gonzalez came in and allowed three runs without retiring an out. Musselman inherited the mess, threw one and two-thirds scoreless innings, and earned the win. Shinohara provided the decisive blow a three-run homer in the seventh off Lauersdorf that gave Sacramento a lead it held. Six to three.
@ Portland, June 2-4 (3-0)
June 2nd was the most compressed win of the stretch: eight innings of nothing from both sides, Andretti grinding through seven and two-thirds innings of three-hit baseball against a Portland team that had gone 25-30 to that point, Sacramento down one entering the ninth when Mollohan doubled and Ortiz followed with a run-scoring single. Ke got the win. Two to one.
June 3rd: Espenoza six and two-thirds innings, three earned runs including a Gorum three-run homer in the first inning. Garcia homered for Sacramento in the first to offset it, then Chavarria and Nakazawa added run-scoring hits in the fifth. Lawson and Medina held Portland through the finish. Four to three.
June 4th was twenty-one combined runs and something approaching chaos in the middle innings. Sacramento led eight to five through four. Portland scored nine runs in the fifth and sixth innings Flores allowed four runs in one-third of an inning, Gonzalez allowed one more to take a ten to eight lead. Then Ke threw two shutdown innings. Then Mollohan, four for five on the day, hit a two-run homer off Foster in the eighth to put Sacramento ahead for good. Eleven to ten.
@ San Antonio, June 5-6 (2-0)
Cruz went five innings at San Antonio, struck out eight batters, and allowed one run then was removed with an apparent injury sustained while pitching. Musselman and Flores handled the remainder. The offense generated eight runs against a depleted Hell Fire staff. Shinohara had three RBI, Navarro doubled twice, Alvarez doubled twice including a two-out RBI in the ninth. Eight to three, win number nine.
June 6th: Strickler seven innings, zero walks, seven strikeouts the precise, commanding version that justifies his place in the rotation. He allowed four runs but Sacramento built a sufficient cushion in the fifth on Garcia's two-run homer and held on for six to four.
vs. Albuquerque, June 7-8 (1-1)
The streak ended June 7th and the manner of it was the significant detail. Sacramento scored nine runs. Navarro hit a two-run homer in the ninth to make it close. Lopez had three RBI, including a three-run shot off Reeves in the fourth. Andretti allowed seven runs in three and two-thirds innings Diaz and Cordova each homered off him, and Lawson allowed three more in the aftermath. Ten to nine, Albuquerque.
June 8th answered the question of whether Espenoza had corrected his recent mechanical issues. Eight and two-thirds innings, one earned run, seven strikeouts, ground ball to fly ball ratio showing the downward movement he had lost in his previous two starts. Navarro went three for four with two RBI. Alvarez went three for four with three RBI including a four-RBI grand slam double off Sevilla in the eighth. Seven to one.
@ San Jose, June 9-11 (2-1)
June 9th: Rubalcava lasted only five innings against San Jose but generated enough of a lead to work with Chavarria homered in the fourth, Lopez homered in the seventh, Puga had two RBI with a bases-loaded single. Gonzalez threw two shutdown innings to earn the win. Benson's sixteenth save. Five to four.
June 10th: Ebizo Suzuki. Eight innings, three hits, zero runs, eight strikeouts. Cruz matched him for five innings before departing zero earned runs in the outing but the Sacramento offense could not generate anything against Suzuki when it mattered. Musselman allowed the game's only run in the sixth on an Avitia RBI double. One to nothing. Suzuki's ERA now sits at 3.35 and he has 92 strikeouts. He is what his numbers say he is.
June 11th: Strickler allowed four runs and eight hits in four and two-thirds innings before being lifted. Shinohara provided the offensive answer a first-inning triple, then a three-run homer in the third, three RBI total. Choi followed in the fifth with a two-run homer. Bobby Flores threw three and one-third innings of scoreless relief to earn the win. Benson closed for save seventeen. Five to four, Sacramento.
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WHAT THE NINE-GAME STREAK REVEALED
Nine wins in a row confirmed something that has been visible since May but not yet consolidated into a settled conclusion: when Sacramento's rotation makes six or more quality starts in sequence, the offense is capable of winning even when a given day produces only average production. The lineup has enough depth at enough positions that the average Sacramento game not the great ones, just the average ones generates more runs than the average opposing starter can contain.
The Seattle series was the clearest demonstration. Sacramento did not produce memorable offensive numbers in any of the three games. The wins came from Rubalcava holding a lineup to minimal damage, Cruz striking out nine batters in a relatively quiet offensive game, Strickler doing enough work in a game where the bullpen needed to carry significant load. Clean wins. The kind a genuine October contender produces when its rotation is right.
The Portland June 4th game is the inverse example Sacramento won eleven to ten in a game that required Ke throwing two innings of relief and Mollohan providing the final margin. Games can be won that way too, and they were. But the rotation's depth is what makes the wins structural rather than opportunistic.
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SHINOHARA'S JUNE
Fourteen home runs. Fifty-seven RBI. The triple and three-run homer against San Jose on June 11th produced a game line that read like a statement: two for five, a triple, a home run, three RBI, a team-leading performance in a game Sacramento needed. He leads the team in both home runs and RBI by a margin that has widened each month.
His postgame comment "see ball, hit ball, when I think too much that's when I get in trouble" describes a hitter who has found a mechanical groove and is resisting the temptation to overanalyze it. What has emerged in June is a right fielder who no longer needs to be described in relative terms. Fourteen home runs before the all-star break represents a legitimate power season by any measure, not a pleasant surprise.
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ABOUT THAT 1-0 LOSS
Three hits in nine innings by Sacramento Prayers. Vic Cruz pitched well five innings, zero earned runs and Sacramento still lost because the offense could not touch Suzuki regardless of who was throwing on the other side. That is the kind of loss that contains useful information: not every Sacramento loss is a failure of execution or a bad starting performance. Sometimes the other pitcher is simply that good.
Suzuki at eight and two is among the five or six best pitchers in the American League by any metric that matters. His strikeout total (92 through early June) and his ERA (3.35) across a mid-tier team in the AL West are numbers a team like Sacramento would be happy to receive from its own ace. When Sacramento meets San Jose again in September or October with division positioning at stake, the Suzuki matchup will require a plan beyond hoping the offense does what it normally does. Because on June 10th, it didn't.
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THE INJURY BOARD
Cruz pitched through whatever discomfort he experienced on June 5th, taking the ball again five days later. His ERA after the June 10 start sits at 3.12. The organization did not place him on the IL and the June 10 start showed no visible diminishment of effectiveness. The minor injury undisclosed in terms of nature appears to have been manageable.
Chavarria was hurt while running the bases on June 9th. He appeared in the June 11th starting lineup, suggesting a day-to-day situation rather than something serious.
Lozano's oblique strain situation (announced May 31st) carries a two-week timeline. He has not appeared in these lineups. The oblique is the kind of injury where the two-week estimate is a floor, not a ceiling overexertion during recovery extends timelines, as the Jeon situation demonstrated earlier in the season.
Gil Cruz has two days remaining on the IL, Van Ham has one day remaining. Both are imminent returns that would provide roster flexibility and allow the regular infield configuration to approach something close to healthy.
Rodriguez remains out six to seven months.
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AROUND THE LEAGUE
Detroit leads the AL Central at 45-20 and has won three in a row. Sacramento's .703 winning percentage is the highest in the American League. The gap between these two teams one game in the loss column is the most compelling competitive situation in baseball, even though they play in different divisions and will not meet until the postseason if they both advance.
Charlotte is 40-25 and still very much alive in the AL Central race, seven games back. Nashville at 34-31 has faded. Brooklyn continues to lead the AL East at 42-21.
On June 3rd, Manuel Hernandez of Salt Lake City hit the 500th home run of his career in a win over Long Beach. He is batting .307 with 501 career home runs across 2,001 games. Giacomo Benoldi of Columbus reached 2,000 career hits the same day. Two significant milestones arrived on the same afternoon in different ballparks.
Vancouver leads the NL Pacific Division on a nine-game winning streak. El Paso continues to be the most impressive team in the National League at 42-22.
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THE INBOX
From Dariusz Kowalczyk of Sacramento's Pocket neighborhood, a civil litigator, who asks: "Is the Sacramento rotation healthy enough to make a deep postseason run, given everything that's happened this year?"
The answer through June is yes with qualifications. What the nine-game streak demonstrated is that when the rotation lines up correctly, Sacramento has five starters capable of winning at the major-league level. Cruz at 3.12 ERA, Andretti at 3.51, Rubalcava at 3.90, Espenoza at 3.92, Strickler at 4.31 that is a rotation whose cumulative quality exceeds almost every team in the FBL. The qualifications: Strickler's consistency remains the largest open question. He can throw seven innings with zero walks and seven strikeouts against San Antonio, and he can allow eight hits and four walks in less than five innings at San Jose. The same rotation spot, wildly different outcomes. In a postseason series, manager Aces would be forced to make decisions about Strickler's usage that don't arise during the regular season. Beyond Strickler, the bullpen depth Esparza gone, Ke and Musselman carrying heavy loads is the secondary concern. Six months of wear on a thin bullpen matters in October. It doesn't eliminate the postseason possibility, but it informs how careful the organization should be about Benson's usage and extra-inning exposure between now and September.
From Amara Traorι of Sacramento's Del Paso Heights neighborhood, a youth basketball coach, who asks: "Navarro is playing shortstop, hitting .291 with 10 home runs, and is on a seven-game hot streak where he's batting .542. What exactly are we watching here?"
You're watching a player in the middle of becoming what scouts projected he might eventually be. The projections for Navarro when Sacramento drafted him were always built on the assumption that his physical tools arm, athleticism, bat speed would produce elite offensive numbers once the mental side of hitting caught up to his mechanics. The timing was always uncertain. What 2000 has provided is circumstance: Rodriguez's elbow forced Navarro into the lineup at a position he hadn't fully settled into, and the only way through it was to play. Two hundred plate appearances of exposure to major-league pitching at a position that requires full concentration produces development faster than any simulated work. He's twenty-two years old, playing above his designated position out of organizational necessity, hitting .291 with ten home runs at a pace that projects to thirty or more over a full season. Whether this is a hot streak within a developing career or the beginning of something sustained is the question. Everything about the mechanics and the approach over these thirteen games suggests the latter.
From Nneka Osei of Sacramento's Fair Oaks neighborhood, a pediatric nurse, who asks: "Suzuki shut us out on three hits. How worried should Sacramento fans be about San Jose as a playoff threat?"
Genuinely worried about Suzuki, less worried about San Jose as an organization. Suzuki at 8-2 with 92 strikeouts is a legitimate ace, and if San Jose reaches the postseason and he pitches two or three games in a series, those games will be competitive regardless of which team is on the other side. The concern is specific to him rather than to the San Jose lineup, which is capable but not dominant, or the San Jose bullpen, which has contributed to several close losses this year. San Jose is 33-32 and currently in the wildcard picture they are not a bad team, but they are not the equal of Sacramento, Detroit, or Charlotte as a complete organization. Where they become dangerous is in a short series where Suzuki pitches twice. That is the postseason scenario worth taking seriously, and Sacramento's June 10th game is the evidence that the concern is warranted.
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Forty-five and nineteen. Philadelphia comes to Sacramento for three games starting Tuesday, then Boston for the next three. Gil Cruz and Van Ham both eligible to return within days. Lozano's oblique needs time to heal. Shinohara is playing like an All-Star.
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Claude Playball is a baseball insider and analyst and host of the Hot Corner podcast, based in Sacramento, California.