Sunday Notes: Davis Martin Had a First Inning to Forget at Fenway Park

Davis Martin had a first inning to forget on Tuesday. Pitching at Fenway Park, the Chicago White Sox right-hander was torched for six runs by a scorching-hot Red Sox team that went on to prevail 14-2. He settled down after the tumultuous frame — only one more runner crossed the plate before Martin departed in the sixth — but by then the damage was done.

What happened in the fateful first inning? I asked him that question the following day, but before we get to his thoughts, a quick recap:

With two on and one out, Willson Contreras singled home a run. Two batters later, Caleb Durbin launched a grand slam. Jarren Duran then followed with a solo shot on Martin’s 20th pitch of the game.

The hurler’s take?

“First, there is a lot to be said about how good this Red Sox team is, and what they’ve been doing,” said Martin, who is 9-6 with a 4.13 ERA and a 3.48 FIP over 122 innings on the season. “We studied the scouting report, and there weren’t a lot of pitches that I would want to take back. But yeah, I felt that they were one step ahead. They were doing a really good job of keeping me off balance.”

Red Sox hitters had clearly been more aggressive than the White Sox expected. Half a dozen runs coming on 20 pitches thrown to seven batters is notable, especially when you consider that Contreras saw six of them. His at-bat was arguably the key to the inning. After fouling off consecutive two-strike offerings, the slugger got his RBI knock on a breaking ball that was well wide of the plate.

“That is my best pitch, and it was in the best location I could put it, but that’s what can happen when you have a really good player on the other side,” the right-hander reasoned. “He made a great adjustment. He threw his hands at it and got the bat on the ball. That’s why I say that baseball happens. The hitters are also getting paid to play the game.”

From my perch in the press box, two of the pitches that preceded Contreras’s softly-hit single looked like candidates to be driven with authority. I asked Martin if that observation was accurate.

“I think so, he replied. “At the same time, it’s a cat-and-mouse game. Is he sitting soft? Is he sitting hard? When he’s not squaring some of those balls up — he’s just fouling them off — you’re thinking, ‘Is he looking for something else?’ Again, it’s a cat-and-mouse game, and when you get it right it’s a lot of fun. When you get it wrong, it’s not so fun.”

The back-to-back gophers he surrendered certainly weren’t fun. The reason those pitches got squared up?

“It was probably more execution than anything,” said Martin, who also told me that video suggested he may have been tipping pitches. “I think the sequencing was okay. With Duran, we threw a really good four-seam on the bottom rail, then we threw a slider. It was a good tunnel, but it was a little too left and he made a great swing on it. With Durbin, the sinker is a good bread-and-butter ground-ball pitch for me, but he was able to lift it in the air. They’re good hitters.”

Martin is a pitcher who has established himself as solid contributor to a big-league rotation, and his opinion of how he has improved most is relevant to Tuesday’s outing.

“In the NFL, the first 15 plays are often scripted for the offense,” Martin said of his maturity gains on the mound. “After that, you see what the defense is doing and adjust. Same thing in baseball. You have your scouting report on what guys do well, and don’t do well, but if you’re throwing the scouting report third time through the order, you’re asking for trouble. That’s been a big thing for me this year, watching how hitters are reacting to pitches, making sure that we’re making adjustments and being one step ahead of them.”

Which didn’t happen at Fenway Park until it was too late.

“They were hyper-aggressive, looking to jump pitches,” said Martin. “When you get punched in the mouth, you try to get off script as fast as possible. I got a lot of soft contact after the first inning, but not before that.”

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Mickey Mantle went 25 for 50 against Hank Aguirre.

Mickey Morandini went 25 for 59 against Andy Benes.

Mickey Vernon went 25 for 59 against Frank Lary.

Mickey Cochrane went 25 for 63 against Clint Brown.

Mickey Stanley went 25 for 75 against Sam McDowell.

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Mitch Bratt pitched the best game of his nascent MLB career on Wednesday. Earning his first-ever win while making his sixth start, the 23-year-old Arizona Diamondbacks southpaw allowed just one hit over seven shutout innings against the San Diego Padres. Attacking with a six-pitch mix, he walked three and fanned nine.

His earlier outings had been a mixed bag, with an atypical amount of free passes notable among those efforts. Back in December, Brendan Gawlowski described Bratt as being “among the best control pitching prospects in the minors since he signed as Texas’ over-slot fifth rounder in 2021.” Belying his strike-throwing profile, he came into the contest having walked 15 batter in 20-and-two-thirds frames.

A handful of days before his handcuffing of San Diego batters, I asked the Newmarket, Ontario native about his recent inability to find the zone.

“It’s about just trusting my stuff, trusting that I’m good enough to be up here,” replied Bratt, whom the D-Backs acquired from the Rangers at last summer’s trade deadline. “The confidence to face hitters at this level is basically what it has stemmed from. I just need to get my feet wet, my feet under me, and keep going.”

The promising youngster explained that it wasn’t a matter of being out of sync mechanically, but rather him not simply executing his pitches. His mindset when he is dominating the strike zone?

“I kind of just reach a flow state,” explained Bratt, who throws from the first base side of the rubber and gets high marks for deception. “When I’m executing, I’m not thinking about anything. All I’m doing is trusting my stuff and competing. Basically, I’m turning my mind off and just pitching.”

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A quiz:

Mike Krukow, who announced on Thursday that he will be retiring at the end of the season after 36 years in the San Francisco Giants broadcast booth, finished third in NL Cy Young Award voting in 1986. A Houston Astros right-hander captured the honor that year, while a Los Angeles Dodgers southpaw polled second. Who are those two hurlers?

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

The Chicago White Sox retired Ozzie Guillen’s No. 13 yesterday. Guillen is the 13th member of the organization, and first manager, to have his number retired.

The Seattle Mariners announced yesterday that Rick Rizzs will be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame. Now in his 41st season in the team’s broadcast booth, Rizzs will be the 12th member of the Mariners HoF.

Anthony Salazar was announced as the winner of this year’s Bob Davids Award, SABR’s highest honor. Salazar is the longtime chair of the SABR’s Latino Baseball Committee, as well as a former director.

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The answer to the quiz is Houston’s Mike Scott, who captured the Cy Young, and L.A.’s Fernando Valenzuela.

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Scott Harris met with reporters over Zoom following the trade that sent Tarik Skubal to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and one of the things he addressed was the timing of the swap. I found his perspective to be particularly interesting.

“There is a unique dynamic with a player like Tarik Skubal,” the Detroit Tigers president of baseball operations opined. “Markets at the deadline for the top players are just different than the rest of the market. I understand the sort of intuition that, ‘Hey, you’re supposed to wait until the very last second on a deal, then pull the trigger… to maximize the return.’ That’s not how markets for the top players work.

“There weren’t these market forces that were ultimately affecting what each team’s appetite was for a package to land Skubal,” Harris went on to say. “The market was the market. The teams that were in were in, and the teams that were not in weren’t in… We had the steering wheel, and we could steer it as fast or as slow as we wanted to. I am very confident that we absolutely maximized what we could get for Tarik Skubal.”

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Takeya Nakamura recorded his first hit of the current campaign on Saturday — it was just his second game — and now has hits in 24 consecutive seasons. The 42-year-old Seibu Lions third baseman has 1,831 safeties for his NPB career, including 481 home runs. He has 499 homers as a professional.

Teruaki Sato has 23 home runs and a 201 wRC+ to go with a .318/.405/.602 slash line in 420 plate appearances for NPB’s Hanshin Tigers. Many expect the 27-year-old third baseman/outfielder to be posted following the season — multiple MLB teams are scouting him heavily — but that scenario comes with a caveat: an extended lockout is very much a possibility.

Raidel Martinez has 30 saves, a 1.72 ERA, a 2.03 FIP, and a 29.7% strikeout rate over 36-and-two-thirds innings with the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants. The 29-year-old right-hander from Pinar del Rio, Cuba has averaged 40 saves over his last four full NPB seasons. As Eric Longenhagen has noted, Martinez is “playing in Japan with the blessing of the Cuban government, and so would need to defect and establish residency somewhere else in order to sign with an MLB team.”

Lewin Díaz is slashing .294/.376/.479 with 16 home runs and a 125 wRC+ in 447 plate appearances for the KBO’s Samsung Tigers. A Miami Marlin from 2020-2022, the 29-year-old first baseman left the yard 50 times for the Daegu, South Korea-based club a year ago.

Kyle Garlick has 21 home runs to go with a .313/.369/.579 slash line in 358 plate appearances with the Mexican League’s Charros de Jalisco. The 34-year-old former Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies, and Minnesota Twins outfielder last suited up for an MLB team in 2023.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

Barney McCosky put up good numbers with the Detroit Tigers before missing three seasons to help out Uncle Sam. An outfielder, he slashed .316/.389/.440 from his 1939 rookie campaign through 1942, a span that included the Tabbies falling to the Cincinnati Reds in seven games in the 1940 Fall Classic. McCosky’s regular season output that year included his leading the junior-circuit in both hits (200) and triples (19).

A native of Coal Run, Pennsylvania who attended Detroit’s Southwestern High School, McCosky returned to MLB in 1946 once his stint in the US Navy was over. He played parts of another seven seasons, seeing action with the Tigers, Reds, Cleveland Indians, and Philadelphia Athletics, finishing with 1,301 hits and a .312 batting average. An injury derailed his career. Back-to-back stellar campaigns for the A’s — a combined 327 batting average and a .400 OBP — were followed by spinal surgery in 1949. He did little of consequence in baseball thereafter.

His departure from Detroit was quite consequential. In May 1946, the Tigers sent McCosky to Philadelphia in exchange for a 23-year-old third baseman named George Kell. Over parts of seven Motown seasons, Kell made six All-Star teams and won a batting title. He was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1983.

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FARM NOTES

Giaconino Lasaracina is slashing .301/.394/.594 with 10 home runs and a 145 wRC+ in 155 plate appearances between the Florida Complex League and Low-A Dunedin. A 22-year-old Venezuelan-born catcher/first baseman who was signed by the Toronto Blue Jays this past March, Lasaracina played for Settimo in Italy’s Serie A from 2022-2024 and represented Team Italy in this year’s WBC.

Charles Davalan is slashing .300/.416/.547 with 19 home runs and a 146 wRC+ in 428 plate appearances — he also has 16 steals — for the High-A Great Lakes Loons. Drafted 41st overall last year out of the University of Arkansas, the 22-year-old Waterloo, Ontario-born outfielder is ranked seventh in the Los Angeles Dodgers system with a 45+ FV.

Roch Cholowsky made his professional debut on Tuesday and has since homered, and doubled twice, while going 3-for-14 with the High-A Winston-Salem Dash. Drafted first overall this summer by the Chicago White Sox out of UCLA, the 21-year-old shortstop is ranked as the club’s top prospect.

Vahn Lackey has begun his professional career 5-for-22 with a double and seven walks over seven games with the Low-A Fort Myers Mighty Mussels. Drafted third-overall this summer out of Georgia Tech, the 21-year-old catcher is ranked second in the Minnesota Twins system.

Carter Beck has begun his professional career by logging six hits and a pair of walks in first 15 plate appearances with the Low-A Augusta GreenJackets. Drafted 26th overall by the Atlanta Braves out of Indiana State University, the 21-year-old outfielder was born in Estevan, Saskatchewan.

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Lucas Elissalt was referred to as “a crafty curveballer” when he was first featured here at FanGraphs six months ago. The description still fits, but that doesn’t mean he has been stagnant. Now in his second full professional season, the recently-turned-22-year-old right-hander in the Detroit Tigers organization is continuing to grow his game. Elissalt addressed some of his developmental strides when I caught up to him in mid-July.

“I think the biggest difference between last year and this year is the physical aspect,” said the 2024 13th-pick out of Chipola College, who currently has a 3.72 ERA, a 4.32 FIP, and a 28.2% strikeout rate over 75 innings with the High-A West Michigan Whitecaps. “I’ve gained about 10 pounds — I weigh 200 now — and have also added some velocity. With a few minor mechanical tweaks and the increased [physicality], I’m also able to hold my velocity longer into games.”

Elissalt told me that his fastball has been averaging 93.3 mph, whereas last season it averaged a more pedestrian 91.2 mph. Moreover, he has logged a number of 94s and 95s, and even “touched 96 a couple of times.” And then there are the non-physical improvements, which include the way he employs his arsenal.

“Earlier this season, I wasn’t attacking hitters as well as I am now,” explained Elissalt, who is currently No. 25 in our Tigers prospect rankings with a 40 FV. “We had to adjust how I attack right-handed hitters, and how I attack left-handed hitters. Sequencing is part of it Midway through the season, I’m getting used to what they’re trying to do off of me, as well as gaining a better understanding of what makes me successful.”

His revamped attack plan has been working just fine. Over his last 10 outings, Elissalt has fanned 51 batters and allowed just 26 hits across 43-and-two-thirds frames. His ERA over that span is a sparkling 2.08.

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Denae Benites has been one of the early hitting stars in the newly-formed Women’s Pro Baseball League. A 24-year-catcher and captain for the New York Heights, Benae has 10 hits, including four home runs, in just a dozen at-bats.

Maggie Foxx, a catcher/pitcher/outfielder for the WPBL’s Los Angeles Queens, has also excelled. The 20-year-old Brown University student is 7-for-14 with two doubles and a pair of walks in 16 trips to the plate, and has also tossed two innings, allowing one hit and one run. Her father is an official scorer at Fenway Park.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

At Sports Info Solutions, Daine Medlock took a deep dive into checked swings.

The Athletics and longtime GM David Forst parted ways on Friday. CBS Sports’s Matt Snyder presented five questions the new GM will be facing as a move to Las Vegas looms.

Doug Glanville wrote about the other side of trade deadlines on his Substack.

Purple Row’s Joelle Milholm wrote about how erstwhile Colorado Rockie Eric Young Sr. is making history as a first-time manager in the WPBL.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Chicago White Sox relievers have combined to log 507 strikeouts, the most in the majors. Arizona Diamondbacks relievers have combined to log 340 strikeouts, the fewest in the majors.

Washington Nationals relievers have combined to walk 240 batters, the most in the majors. Arizona Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners relievers have each combined to walk 135 batters, the fewest in the majors.

Boston’s Brayan Bello is 3-0 with a 0.61 ERA over 44 innings out of the bullpen. As a starter, Bello is 1-6 with a 10.35 ERA over 35-two-thirds innings.

Matt Olson is poised to play in his 900th consecutive game today. Only seven players in MLB history boast a longer streak.

Pete Alonso has played in 533 consecutive games, the second-highest current streak behind Olson’s. Per the Elias Sports Bureau, a total of 39 players since 1900 have appeared in 500 or more consecutive games.

On today’s date in 1971, Rico Petrocelli hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Boston Red Sox a 12-11 win over the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park. The wild affair featured just one home run by the home team — a grand slam by Bob Montgomery, while a trio of Tigers accounted for six round-trippers. Aurelio Rodriguez homered once, Willie Horton did so twice, and Bill Freehan launched three homers.

Pittsburgh Pirates southpaw John Candelaria no-hit the Los Angeles Dodgers on today’s date in 1976. “The Candy Man” finished that season — his second in the big leagues — with a record of 16-7 and a 3.15 ERA over 220 innings.

Chicago Cubs right-hander “Brakeman Jack” Taylor threw the last of his 187 consecutive complete games on today’s date in 1906 (he also made 15 relief appearances over that stretch, which began on June 13, 1901). All told, Taylor completed 286 of 310 career starts.

Players born on today’s date include Ryan Radmanovich, a first baseman/outfielder whose MLB career comprised 25 games and 15 hits in 69 at-bats for the Seattle Mariners in 1998. A native of Calgary, Alberta, Radmanovich recorded a pair of round-trippers, one off of Rolando Arrojo, the other off of Eric Gunderson.

Also born on today’s date was Ralph Houk, a catcher who appeared in 91 games for the New York Yankees across the 1947-1954 seasons. A native of Lawrence, Kansas who batted .272 over just 171 career plate appearances, Houk was part of four World Series-winning teams, two as a player and two as a manager. “The Major” managed for 20 MLB seasons, skippering the Yankees, Detroit Tigers, and Boston Red Sox.