Why Brandon Morrow can’t get it done consistently.

Monday was an absolute roller coaster of a game in which Seattle loses 13-12.  Brandon Morrow picks up the loss after surrendering a walk-off blast to former Mariner Ramon Vazquez.

I’ve written several times about Morrow and how he doesn’t have what it takes to be a consistently successful reliever in the major leagues.  The main thing was his overall control and pitch selection.  After Monday’s game not much has changed; he’s still wild with his breaking balls with a poor pitch selection, but at least he’s more accurate with his fastballs.

Morrow faced five hitters on Monday night.  He struck out the side in the 9th with nine fastballs and three breaking balls, making Brandon Boggs, Gerald Laird and Chris Shelton look completely overwhelmed.  David Murphy leads off in the tenth and cheats a bit jumping all over a fastball on the inside corner, but pulls it foul.  Murphy ends up striking out. 

Vazquez comes up to the plate.  Morrow learned from Murphy’s at bat and starts him off with a curveball that misses for a ball.  (The strikezone was microscopic tonight, but that’s not the point.)  The next pitch was a fastball thigh-high and middle in that Vazquez blasts over the right field wall for the win.

Murphy cheated on the first pitch because he knew a fastball was coming.  Vazquez, who is not known for his power, was able to cheat on the 1-0 count because he knew Morrow couldn’t throw a breaking ball for a strike, allowing him to sit on and pull a 94 MPH heater down the line and into the seats.

So, for the same reasons I gave earlier in the year, Morrow cannot be successful in the major leagues until he gains control of his secondary pitches.  Until then, manager John McLaren would be smart to pitch Morrow no longer than one inning so that teams do not catch on during the outing.  Unfortunately, that won’t last long because scouting reports going out to every single team will be saying, “Do not swing at the breaking balls, sit on a fastball.”