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Mariners
Houston batters left baffled by Nageotte

By Bob Condotta
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Since Mariners pitcher Clint Nageotte was making his first major-league start last night, and just his second major-league appearance, the Houston Astros went into the game with little real knowledge of how he might throw.

After facing him, they sounded like they had even less.

Nageotte, who has replaced struggling Gil Meche in the Seattle rotation, pitched six shutout innings in leading the Mariners to a 5-0 win over the Astros at Safeco Field, striking out eight, giving up six hits and walking three in getting the first victory of his career.

And he left the Astros — who entered the game leading the National League in hitting at .284 — equal parts dumbfounded and confounded in the process.

Jeff Kent, who struck out twice — including with the bases loaded and two outs in the third inning to end Houston's best threat — didn't sound too impressed afterward, muttering that Nageotte "didn't have great command of his pitches. ... He wasn't overpowering. He just kind of threw it all over the place."

But that, Kent said, "made it hard to figure out what he was doing."

And, apparently, that made it even harder for the Astros to hit him.

Said third baseman Morgan Ensberg: "He would throw one ball up towards your chest, and then the next pitch would be some great pitch, and then the following pitch would be in the dirt, and then the next pitch would be a great pitch.

"He did a good job of keeping us off balance."
 
Nageotte mostly used his fastball and slider, getting most of his strikeouts with the latter pitch.

"That was a great slider," Ensberg said. "It's very late breaking. The first one he threw to me came at my hip, and all of the sudden it broke. I thought it was going to hit me. I didn't think it would bite that much, but it did and it was a strike."

It's a baseball cliché that the pitcher usually has the edge against the hitter in initial meetings, that it takes a few at-bats — or even games — for a hitter to get a read.

"But that's no excuse," said Jeff Bagwell, Houston's usual first baseman who served as designated hitter last night. "Obviously, he pitched well. He mixed different speeds and was in and out of the strike zone. It was tough to zone in on him."

The Astros seemed most frustrated that Nageotte got the best of them when it counted most. Besides the third-inning strikeout of Kent, who entered the game with a .369 career average and 10 home runs with bases loaded, Nageotte also struck out Lance Berkman with two on to end the fifth. Berkman entered the game seventh in the NL in hitting at .341.

"We had the right people up there with guys on base," said Houston manager Jimy Williams. "It just didn't work. They made the pitches when they had to."

Kent was so frustrated after the third-inning strikeout — which came on an 81-mph slider — that he hurled his bat almost into the Houston dugout.

Afterward, he said Nageotte "threw a lot of breaking stuff, typical American League," an apparent reference to the old maxim that the National League is a fastball league, while the American League is more kind to junkballers.

"His slider was clearly his out pitch," Ensberg said. "It seemed like he had more control of that than he did of his fastball."

Given the nature of interleague play, it could be a long time before the Astros face Nageotte again. But next time, they'll at least be able to put a face with the name, even if they sound like they'd still have trouble compiling a scouting report.

"I'll remember that slider if I see him again," Ensberg said. "I'll have no problem remembering that."