Takeaways: Learning curve getting steeper for Moore after loss to Yankees

Rookie right-hander Andrew Moore got another harsh reminder Friday in what happens when a command pitcher isn’t spot on in the big leagues.

Moore missed on a curve in the fifth inning, which invites trouble in any situation. Doing it to Aaron Judge, the young Hercules who plays right field for the New York Yankees, is courting disaster.

Which is what happened.

Judge nearly hit the ball out of Safeco Field. Worse, there were two runners on base. The result was a three-run homer that powered the Yankees to a 5-1 victory over the Mariners.

"I would definitely like to have that one back," Moore said. "I thought I commanded the fastball pretty well. The curveball had some life, but that curveball got a little bit away. He does damage on pitches like that."

It was Judge’s 31st homer of the season, which leads the majors. It was also the ninth homer surrendered by Moore in 30 innings over his five starts. Projected over a full season of 180 innings in 30 starts, that’s a 54-homer pace.

No pitcher can sustain that.

The MLB record for homers allowed in a season is 50 by Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven in 1986 while pitching for Minnesota. Even then, Blyleven led the American League with 271 2/3 innings pitched.

"(Moore) does have a fastball that does ride up in the zone," manager Scott Servais said. "In this league, when you make mistakes and get the ball up, big, strong guys are going to hit it a little farther than they do in the minor leagues.

"Andrew is still learning. I still like how he goes about it. He made a couple of mistakes, and it cost us. When you’re playing good teams, the games are going to be tight. One mistake here or there, a bad pitch here or there can really hurt."

Moore, 23, wasn’t homer-prone over parts of three minor-league seasons: 22 homers in 289 2/3 innings in 59 games, including 50 starts. The big leagues, though, are different.

"If you make mistakes," he said, "a lot of times they don’t come back. Especially with middle-of-the-order guys like that, the margin for error is pretty small. You’ve got to execute pitches."

Or you don’t hang around.

Three takeaways from Friday’s loss:

***Baserunning blues: The Mariners provided fresh validation to their reputation as the majors’ worst baserunning team when Ben Gamel broke from second on a one-out grounder to short in the second inning.

Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius easily threw out Gamel at third. The Mariners led 1-0 at the time, and the mistake removed a runner in scoring position. Worse, it was Gamel’s second baserunning blunder in two games.

***Pagan pitches in: One positive in Friday’s loss was rookie reliever Emilio Pagan, who pitched three scoreless innings after replacing Moore. He has now allowed just one run and six hits over 15 1/3 innings in his last five outings.

Pagan appears ready to inherit the long-relief role from veteran Yovani Gallardo, who is returning Sunday to the rotation after a giving up one run and five hits in 11 1/3 innings over four relief appearances.

***Tracking Judge: MLB’s revolutionary Statcast measuring tool hiccuped on Judge’s booming homer to left field in the fifth inning. So no official measurement. The ball was snagged by a fan in the next-to-last row in the upper deck.

The Mariners used the old measuring method — architectural diagrams with distances — and came up with 440 feet. The Yankees’ broadcast called it 491 feet.

The ball was hit to dead left. The distance to the foul line is 331 feet. The distance to the left-center power alley is 378 feet. The ball went into the upper deck somewhere in-between those two markings (but closer toward the foul pole).

No ball has ever been hit out of Safeco Field in its 18-plus seasons in an actual game. (Nelson Cruz did it in batting practice.) Judge came within several feet of becoming the first to do so.

And here’s a sobering note for the Mariners from one of their club officials: "I don’t think he got all of it."

Bob Dutton: @TNT_Mariners

This story was originally published July 22, 2017 at 1:13 AM with the headline "Takeaways: Learning curve getting steeper for Moore after loss to Yankees."