Newcomers Bring Fire Power to Los Bomberos

Los Angeles Angels v Seattle Mariners
Los Angeles Angels v Seattle Mariners | Steph Chambers/GettyImages
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Newcomer #2: Justin Topa

When Dipoto shipped Top 30 prospect Joseph Hernandez to an oft-injured reliever with minor league options, Mariners Twitter went berserk. I might have done the same thing a couple of years ago, but this team has a track record of finding and fixing guys with unique qualities (Paul Sewald). So the first thing they did with Justin Topa was change his pitch mix.

Topa went from throwing the sinker 68% of the time in 2022 to 42% this season. So what is his second-most-thrown pitch? You guessed it, a slider, and it has some serious horizontal break. Four series in, The 32-year-old reliever has thrown some key innings. Look for him to get a stranglehold on the 7th inning shortly.

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