Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Thanks for being here.
When he’s not moonlighting as a GQ model with girlfriend Livvy Dunne, Pirates ace Paul Skenes is figuring out ways to make life even more difficult for opposing hitters.
Granted, the reigning National League Rookie of the Year has all the tools to dominate as is, but standing pat is not really his style. He’s less a pitching artist and more a pitching scientist, always experimenting with grips, shapes and sequences in his never-ending quest to stay one pitch ahead.
Sometimes, he even invents pitches by accident. That’s how he stumbled upon his signature secondary offering — the “splinker,” a splitter/sinker hybrid that consistently makes hitters look foolish. And we really can’t fault them. While Skenes’ high-octane four-seam fastball is still the star of the show, his splinker has definitely earned a case for best supporting actor. The pitch is downright unfair, generating crazy movement for something that sits around 94 mph.
Turns out the splinker has also been tough to nail down for the experts responsible for classifying his pitches, as Mike Petriello noted in his breakdown of Skenes’ ever-expanding arsenal. That’s because splinker is not an official categorization in the parlance of Statcast, meaning classifiers have had to figure out how to label a pitch that really doesn’t fit neatly into an existing box.
Is it a splitter? Not really. Compared to an average splitter, the pitch is thrown much harder and has more drop and more run. Is it a sinker? Not with that spin rate, which is much lower than the average sinker.
For his part, Skenes calls the pitch a sinker. For a while, so did Statcast. But when Skenes — ever the tinkerer — started throwing a different kind of two-seamer that’s closer to a traditional sinker this year, a change was needed to differentiate the two. So now, the splinker is a splitter, as far as Statcast is concerned.
But that’s not all Skenes throws. Far from it. He’s thrown seven different pitch types through two starts this season, and his new cutter hasn’t even made an appearance yet. Perhaps we’ll get a chance to see it when Skenes makes his third start of the season tonight against the Cardinalsat PNC Park (6:40 p.m. ET on MLB.TV). Or maybe he’s ready to unveil another fiendish concoction that leaves hitters and pitch classifiers alike searching for answers.
— Thomas Harrigan
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- Marlins @ Mets (4:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): This one’s starting three hours earlier than originally planned because of blustery conditions at Citi Field, but the cold has been no hurdle for the Mets. The Amazin’s have won all four of their outdoor games this year and are pushing for a sixth straight W today.
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- Phillies @ Braves: (7:15 p.m. ET, MLB.TV, TBS): Zack Wheeler vs. Chris Sale. Need we say more? This is a series-opening matchup between the reigning NL Cy Young winner (Sale) and runner-up (Wheeler), so runs should be hard to come by. It’s also a matchup between the teams in first (Phils) and last (Braves) place in the NL East, but don’t be fooled: It should be a tight one.
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Frank Robinson broke new ground in 1975, becoming the first Black manager in AL/NL history when he took the helm for Cleveland. Robinson’s first game in that role came 50 years ago on this date, marking a defining moment for the sport.
Of course, Robinson wasn’t done playing just yet, much to the chagrin of opposing pitchers. Taking on the dual challenge of playing and managing, Robinson penciled himself into the Opening Day lineup against the Yankees as Cleveland’s DH and made an immediate impact, crushing a homer in his first at-bat.
Although player-managers are a relic of a bygone era, the anniversary of Robinson’s landmark moment, chronicled here by Anthony Castrovince, got us thinking: Which of today’s skippers would be the most likely to go deep in a game right now?
Among active managers, the Athletics’ Mark Kotsay hit the most dingers in his career with 127, one more than Yankees skipper Aaron Boone. But Kotsay last played in 2013, while Boone hasn’t stepped to the plate since 2009. New White Sox manager Will Venable? His last game came in 2016.
Considering recent playing experience, the best choice might be the current Cleveland skipper, Stephen Vogt, who last played in 2022 and even homered in his final at-bat.
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• “The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox” is now streaming on Netflix. From glimpses into team strategy meetings to candid conversations with players and much more, the eight-part docuseries series offers fans unprecedented access to the inner workings of a big league club during the course of a 162-game season. The series was directed by four-time Emmy-winning filmmaker Greg Whiteley, who delved into the making of the project in a conversation with Ian Browne.
• It may be spring, but as the Mets can tell you, April baseball often comes with a chill. That was certainly the case on Monday, as Detroit saw snowflakes fall during the Tigers’ matinee against the Yankees. Meanwhile, Chicago’s Wrigley Field recorded one of its more frigid days on record (colder than the NHL Winter Classic on Dec. 31!), though the Cubs’ offense still found a way to stay hot.
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Can you guess today’s mystery player using clues like age, league, division, position and place of birth? You’ll have nine tries to get it right. We’ll even give you a head start: Yesterday’s answer was Zack Wheeler, so don’t pick him. Good luck! Play here >>
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