The Seattle Mariners left-hander made his first career start last Saturday and is set to take the mound again this Saturday against the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Seattle Mariners head to Toronto over the weekend for a critical three-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays.
At 64-70, the Mariners are 0.5 games back of the Blue Jays (65-70) for the third and final wild card spot in the American League, but more importantly, the M's are three games back in the American League West as they look to win the division for a second straight year.
If the Mariners are going to perform well in this series, they'll be relying on rookie Kade Anderson to pitch well on Saturday afternoon. The top prospect made his major league debut last Saturday against the Chicago Cubs, earning a no-decision as the M's eventually won 5-4 on a walkoff home run by Randy Arozarena.
Anderson went 5.2 innings, surrendering three earned runs on five hits. He had two walks and five strikeouts. While the numbers weren't as dominant as they were in the minor leagues (1.06 ERA), Anderson showed that he belongs in the big leagues. He attacked the strike zone for the most part, used all of his pitches, and wasn't fearful.
Speaking on the most recent edition of the 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast, ESPN MLB Insider Buster Olney spoke about his thoughts on Anderson's first outing.
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Kade Anderson (13) enters the bullpen to warmup before a game against the Chicago Cubs at T-Mobile Park. Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images"So the phrase you just said wasn't fearful. That's a big deal.
When you get a pitcher who's making his debut in a pennant race, how is he going to respond to that? And he was terrific.
He looked comfortable. He had his usual pitch mix. You know, it's so interesting because there are a lot of pitchers in this era where they come out and you're just like, 'yeah, they're just throwing as hard as they can and they don't really know where it's going.'
Kade Anderson is a pitcher.
He has this range of pitches, what 12 miles per hour difference between his low-end velocity the other day, high-end velocity? That's difference.
And that's going to play. You know, of course we're all going to have questions about his workload as we come down the stretch and how the Mariners use him. They had questions about him.
So that was a really good first sign. And it's kind of too bad that his pitching line is made a little crooked by those last two home runs.
But generally speaking, if you're the Mariners, you should be thrilled with what he presented, and he gave them a chance to win, which they did when, when Randy hit that last game-winning home run."
The Mariners and Blue Jays will open up the series on Friday afternoon (4:15 p.m. PT) as Emerson Hancock pitches against Dylan Cease, who is in the mix for the American League Cy Young award.
Anderson will pitch on Saturday at 12:07 p.m. PT against right-hander Jose Soriano, who the Mariners know well from his time with the Los Angeles Angels.
Of note
The 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast has released four new episodes this week. All can be accessed here on the audio front, while all can also be watched on YouTube.
