Kade Anderson turned a key narrative into old news in his 2nd Mariners start

The first two starts of Kade Anderson's career have been anything but uneventful, for good and ill. Randy Arozarena treated him to a walk-off win last Saturday, and then the lefty got the rug pulled out from under him in the Seattle Mariners' 4-3 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday. But if nothing else, he at least seems to have figured out the MLB ball.

Of the positive takeaways from Anderson's MLB debut against the Chicago Cubs last week, not among them was the quality of his fastball. It had the same velocity as when he was tearing through Double-A hitters as Seattle's No. 1 prospect, but not the same shape.

At the time, we alluded to how the balls used in MLB and Triple-A are different from the balls used in the lower levels of the minor leagues. Specifically, the seams of the balls in the lower minors are more pronounced than the seams of the balls at the MLB and Triple-A levels.

What we didn't expect was that this storyline was about to become A Thing, with Geoff Pontes of Baseball America and Adam Jude of The Seattle Times writing whole articles about it. Thus was the stage set for eagle-eyed viewers to watch how Anderson's fastball played in his second major league start, which would also be his first on the road.

This brings us to the good news:

More velocity? More induced vertical break? More spin? Check, check and check. It's license for the Mariners to breathe a sigh of relief that Anderson's fastball will translate to the big leagues after all, even if they publicly never had any doubt.

“We know more about the baseball than we ever have with all the technology,” Trent Blank, the Mariners’ major-league pitching coach and strategist, told Jude. “There’s always, like, a small little tick down. The spin profile changes or they lose a little bit of spin — and we find ways to regain it.”

Kade Anderson and the Mariners might have let adrenaline get the better of them vs. the Blue Jays

All that said, there's little point glossing over how Anderson and the Mariners were indeed on the losing side on Saturday.

The 22-year-old Anderson had better stuff, but he also struck out only three batters while issuing three walks. He wasn't sharp when he needed to be, particularly as he was trying to get through the fifth inning with a 3-0 Mariners lead intact.

He got the first two outs easily enough, but then served up an infield single to Myles Straw and a walk to Brett Bateman. That sequence took Anderson from his 74th pitch to his season-high 85th pitch, so fatigue must have been a factor. He also seemed intent on finishing with a flourish by throwing his last two fastballs past Bateman, instead missing wide on both.

We would call Anderson's failure to dial in and simply make better pitches a rookie mistake, but Eduard Bazardo subsequently proved that even veterans can fall into that trap. He was clearly overthrowing when he faced Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer, hitting 98 and 99 mph but missing the zone by what felt like miles. Of course, that wasn't even the 30-year-old's worst brain fart:

In all, Anderson was both a participant in and an innocent bystander of a frustrating loss by the Mariners. A proper initiation to this season if there ever was one, and hope just keeps dwindling by the day.

This Blue Jays series was meant to be the start of a strong finish by the Mariners. Instead, they're going into Sunday's finale trying to avoid a sweep.

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