Mariners rookie Justus Sheffield makes strides, but Yankees hammer 4 homers to complete sweep
Seattle Mariners manager Scott Servais wants these handful of starts rookie left-hander Justus Sheffield makes at the end of this lost season to be about the experience, not the results.
“We’re kind of cumulative here,” Servais said ahead of Wednesday’s 7-3 loss to the Yankees. “He’s got probably five, six starts with us, and what can we gain out of those five, six starts, other than just tracking the numbers and the results?
“It’s more (about) routine, finding out what works for him, getting him comfortable and just knowing he’s going to be starting going forward with us. He’s a big part of our future.”
To explain what the Mariners want Sheffield’s future to look like, Servais recalled his first season as Seattle’s manager in 2016, when James Paxton — the ace pitcher who was traded to New York last November for Sheffield and two other prospects, and the pitcher who opposed Sheffield in the series finale at T-Mobile Park — was trying to pave his way to a regular rotation role in the majors.
“When I first got here, Paxton started in the minor leagues (with Triple-A Tacoma) that year,” Servais said. “People were like, ‘Oh, we don’t know about James Paxton. What are we going to get out of this guy?’ All the sudden, he develops, you let him grow, he’s learning some things, and now Pax is a dude.
“On the flip side, we’ve got Sheffield almost in the same spot. If you remember some of the early Paxton outings while I was here, there were some growing pains. And you’re like, ‘How’s this guy ever going to get out of it.’ And, they figure it out.”
Surely some comparisons were drawn when Sheffield faced Paxton, and his former team, on Wednesday, given that the two lefty starters were essentially swapped for each other. But, the comparison Servais was most interested in was the potential for growth.
Paxton had an up-and-down season during his first extended look with the Mariners in 2016, and a 3.79 ERA in 20 starts. The next season, he posted a 2.98 ERA in 24 starts. The year after that? He tossed two complete games — including the fifth individual no-hitter in Mariners history.
Servais thinks Sheffield, the club’s No. 9 prospect who turned 23 in May and has made just two starts in the majors, can make career strides like Paxton did with Seattle. It will just take patience.
“Going forward with him, (we’re) excited about his future, but knowing it’s going to be a process,” Servais said. “It’s not just going to be, ‘Bang! There it is, and now he’s an All-Star type.’ It takes time.”
Sheffield has progressed, even during the past week alone, though numbers don’t necessarily suggest it. Wednesday, he logged his first career loss, allowing five runs — including two homers — on six hits across 4 1/3 innings. But, after giving up a deep two-run homer to Gary Sanchez that nearly left the ballpark in the first, Sheffield settled in well.
He retired nine consecutive batters during the next three innings, and struck out four consecutive — including striking out the side in the fourth — at the end of that stretch. Three of his five strikeouts came on swinging sliders. He finished with nine swinging strikes on that pitch.
“I’m here now, so it’s either go out there and get excited or nervous about who’s in the box, or go after them,” Sheffield said. “And, you know, I wanted to go after them.”
“I thought Justus Sheffield really made some strides forward today,” Servais said. “That’s what excited me out there. Certainly not an easy lineup to try to get through. I thought his stuff was really good. ... There’s something to build off of there.”
Sheffield also didn’t walk a batter, which marks improvement. Starting the season with Tacoma, he often battled with the strike zone, walking at least one batter in each of the 12 starts he made with the Rainiers before he was sent to Double-A Arkansas in June to iron out his command issues. Wedensday, he worked his way back from several counts he fell behind in without issuing a free pass.
“It’s encouraging,” Sheffield said. “The game plan was to attack. Even behind in the count I knew that if I made my pitch and executed, hopefully the outcome would happen. I had some 3-2 punchouts tonight where I didn’t want to give up, and just wanted to continue to attack.”
“I think the command, coming back into some counts with his slider when he did get behind (was a takeaway),” Servais said. “There’s no walks, he trusted his stuff.”
He was pulled in the fifth with his pitch count at 92, after allowing a solo homer to Mike Ford, and a one-out double to Tyler Wade. Wade eventually scored on Aaron Judge’s two-run homer off Matt Wisler later in the inning that made it 6-2.
“Again, it’s the Yankees,” Servais said. “He was a part of that organization before, so getting over that hurdle pitching against one of your former teams is a big deal. All positives. Of course he wants to get deeper in the game. He wants to get through the fifth inning and hopefully on to the sixth inning. But, again, it’s a step at a time.”
Servais did say Sheffield continues to manage his emotions better on the mound, and isn’t getting too quick with his delivery, as he has in the past.
“Sometimes his delivery gets so hyped up,” Servais said. “He’s kind of rushing down the mound and can’t really command the ball at all. I thought he kept it in check. I thought it was about 80-85 percent effort out of him today, which is exactly where we need it to be. And I think it’s only going to get better as he gets more comfortable.”
Anthony Bass pitched a scoreless sixth, and Wade LeBlanc tossed the final three innings for the Mariners, allowing a solo homer to D.J. LeMahieu in the ninth. It was the fourth homer of the game, ninth of the series and 70th of the month for New York.
Paxton, meanwhile, allowed a single hit in his five innings of work, though he walked five batters while striking out four on 86 pitches. He had a no-hitter bid going with two outs in the fourth before Kyle Seager launched a two-run homer that also scored Austin Nola, who walked ahead of him.
Judge appeared to have a play on the ball, but a fan snatched it out of the air just beyond the fence in right center. It was Seager’s 18th of the season, and ninth in the month of August, and momentarily tied the score at 2-2.
“(It was) a new experience facing a team I was with for such a long time,” Paxton said. “I just tried not to think about it, and (wanted to go) out and do what I do. ... I was trying to be aggressive, I just had a hard time finding the zone. I was able to correct it in the fifth inning, and get those outs when we needed them.”
Tom Murphy’s one-out double in the ninth off former Mariners reliever Cory Gearrin, and Dylan Moore’s RBI single to left two batters later were Seattle’s only other hits.
This story was originally published August 28, 2019 at 4:22 PM.
