How to combat high heat? Servais: Hunt it

Like every team in the Majors in 2021, the Mariners' hitters are doing their best to adjust to and combat the significant uptick in high heat.

Elevated fastballs have become any given pitcher’s biggest weapon in recent years due to the challenges of making an optimum swing path while trying to catch up to increased velocity. Even when hitters are able to connect, it’s typically weak contact that can lead to easy popups.

Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander were the early pioneers of the elevated fastball, as well as Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom, due to their high-spin, high-90s four-seamers that they blow by hitters with confidence. But in 2021, even lower-velocity arms are making a living up in the strike zone; Marco Gonzales, for example, is throwing his high-80s sinker at a higher rate than ever.

So what is the strategic and psychological genesis of this uptick -- and how are Mariners hitters adjusting?

“You can sit there and say, ‘OK, I’m going to stay off and I'm not going to swing at it and I'm just going to get the ball down,’” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “But if he never throws it down, then what?

“For me, you've got to make almost a visual adjustment. And it's not just to say, 'Hit the top side of the ball.' But, you know, ‘I want to hit this ball off the pitcher's mound. I'm going to hit it off the skin of the diamond.’ You probably won’t. It's probably still going to go in the air, but you’ve got a heck of a lot better chance of turning it into a line drive than a popup in the infield or something soft, a popup into the outfield. So sometimes, you've got to make a conscious effort to do that.”

In the small sample size of the first 23 games, the Mariners have seen more fastballs up than in any area of the strike zone, a league-wide trend:

Seattle ranks middle of the pack in the Majors against high heat. With help from Statcast, we looked at all fastballs -- two- and four-seamers, cutters and sinkers -- thrown in the upper third of the zone and higher, including pitches that were balls.

Mariners vs. elevated fastballs, 2021 (MLB rank) | MLB average
BA: .219 (13th) | .206
SLG: .401 (6th) | .349
wOBA: .345 (9th) | .316
Whiff rate: 31.1% (19th) | 29.5%

Some Seattle hitters have caught up to those heaters better than others. Kyle Seager is 6-for-12 this year, Ty France is 5-for-15, Mitch Haniger is 5-for-19 and Kyle Lewis is 2-for-4 -- including a 429-foot homer off an elevated fastball from José Urquidy in Monday’s 5-2 loss.

Secondary pitches are obviously as gnarly as ever, too, but the elevated fastball has been perhaps the biggest culprit in declining offensive production and higher swing-and-miss rates -- particularly this season, as FanGraphs pointed out in a recent article. And considering that the new ball has created more drag and led to harder-hit balls going shorter distances, there’s a correlation with pitchers throwing heat in the zone more regularly.

Servais even suggested that the long-term impact could be adjusting the measures of the strike zone.

“I think one of the things that will be discussed here, in the near term, is the strike zone,” Servais said. “Would it be more conducive to more contact if the strike zone was wider, vs. it being so north and south? North and south create strikeouts. That's the bottom line. If it's wider, you will see more balls put in play. … That's one of the things I think will eventually get discussed as they go through different rule changes and try to make the game better and more exciting and more fun to watch.”

Mariners move Long to 60-day IL, claim Mayfield
Shed Long Jr. on Tuesday was moved to the 60-day injured list, which created a 40-man roster spot for the Mariners to claim infielder Jack Mayfield off waivers from the Angels.

Long continues to make progress at the club’s Spring Training facility in Peoria, Ariz., from the surgically repaired right shin stress fracture that he suffered last September. Mariners management believes that he’ll be ready to return to game action by the end of May, most likely at a Minor League affiliate.

Mayfield, 30, has seven years of Minor League experience and 49 games of action in the big leagues. He was assigned to Seattle's alternate training site at T-Mobile Park and will provide depth at Triple-A Tacoma when the Rainiers begin their season on May 6. He could also be brought up to the Majors in a pinch if the Mariners suffer some infield roster attrition. Mayfield is a career .272/.330/.461 hitter in the Minors, where he has mostly played second base. In 115 MLB plate appearances, he has hit .165/.193/.275.