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Brandon Morrow Dominates Angels, Strike Zone
Brandon Morrow entered the 2012 season as one of MLB’s ultimate “what if” pitchers. He has owned excellent peripheral statistics throughout his entire career but has struggled mightily with balls in play and with stranding runners, resulting in ERAs much higher than estimators like FIP or xFIP or SIERA would have us expect. Morrow wouldn’t be the first pitcher to prove an exception to DiPS theory — Ricky Nolasco, for example, has followed a similar path. Morrow’s excellent strikeout-inducing stuff — three seasons over 10 K/9 — and his past two seasons with FIPs well below the league average led many to ponder what could happen if he puts it all together.
Oddly enough, entering last night’s start against the Angels, Morrow was excelling in the same facets of the game that typically kill him. He owned a 3.03 ERA despite just 21 strikeouts in 32.2 innings and seven home runs allowed, but a .215 BABIP and exceptional control kept runners off the bases. The Brandon Morrow of old really hadn’t surfaced — the one with all the potential and all the strikeouts — but he was more effective than ever, living off pinpoint control (2.2 BB/9) and his fielders as opposed swings and misses.
Last night against the Angels, Morrow threw a three-hit, eight-strikeout shutout, bringing together the best of both worlds.
Reds Find Useful Role For Chapman
The Reds’ plans for Aroldis Chapman’s role on the team have never really appeared to be fully fleshed out. First he was supposed to be a starter, but then team needs for the 2010 playoff run required another reliever. The opportunity to move him back into the rotation has never been seized since, and although there was much discussion of Chapman as the Reds’ fifth starter this season, he’s remained in the bullpen for the entire year. Starting remains an option for 24-year-old, and probably the best one for the team. If the Reds are going to keep Chapman in the bullpen, however, his usage so far this season serves as excellent blueprint.
Hunter Finally Finds Groove Over Heart Of The Plate
Monday against Minnesota, the Angels broke the two run barrier for the first time in eight games, hanging four runs on Nick Blackburn and the Twins. With C.J. Wilson and Scott Downs on their respective games, four was enough, and the Angels won just their second game in their last eight tries. The hero was Torii Hunter, who plated the Angels first three runs behind an RBI single in the first and a two-run home run in the fourth inning. The home run marked his third of the season and his third in the past four days. Blackburn’s offering was right over the middle of the plate, just as those from Jeanmar Gomez on Saturday and Justin Masterson on Friday. The four-day run ends what has been an uncharacteristic struggle for Hunter with pitches over the middle of the plate in 2012.
Where Are Heath Bell’s Whiffs?
Heath Bell was just one strike away from getting the second out in the ninth Thursday in New York. Bell was in just another jam, the fourth time in seven outings this season at least three baserunners reached against him. But with Justin Turner at the plate — a lifetime .248/.325/.336 hitter — Bell jumped out to an 0-2 count. There was his way out.
And then Turner fouled off a couple pitches. And then a couple more. And the next thing we knew, it was a full count. And then he fouled off four more pitches. Finally, on the 13th pitch of the at-bat, Turner took ball four on a pitch down and out of the zone. The Mets had the game tied and would eventually win it on Kirk Niewenhuis’s long single to right field as the rain poured on Citi Field.
It’s been about as rough a season as anybody could imagine for the 34-year-old closer. In just 5.2 innings, Bell has allowed eight runs (six earned), walked seven batters, and allowed nine hits. Pretty much every rate imaginable to measure his pitching is unfortunate at this point, but the most distressing? Perhaps a 4.9% swinging strike rate, a big part of the reason Bell couldn’t get out of the ninth Thursday at Citi Field. It used to be Bell could take a hitter like Justin Turner and blow him away. Not so throughout 2012 thus far.
LaHair Wins Motte’s 12-Pitch Battle
With a two-out, two-run walk-off single off St. Louis closer Jason Motte, the Cubs’ Joe Mather became Monday night’s unlikeliest hero. But all you had to do was ask him — before the traditional shaving cream pie to the face, of course — and he’d tell you (as he told WGN after the game) the man truly responsible for the Cubs’ ninth-inning rally was Bryan LaHair. The 29-year-old Cubs project worked a 12-pitch walk off Motte with one out, fouling off six consecutive offerings on a 3-2 count. Motte would eventually blow the save on his 31st pitch of the night. Only one other time has Motte thrown over 31 pitches in a single-inning appearance — July 16, 2010 against Los Angeles — and he gave up two runs in that outing as well.
Curtis Granderson Loves Right Field
Following last night’s majestic performance in which he pulled three home runs into the right field seats at Yankee Stadium, it should come as no surprise that Curtis Granderson is putting up eye-popping numbers to the pull side. He will enter play Friday with 11 hits — including six home runs — on 24 total balls in play hit to the right side of the diamond. That’s a .458 average, a 1.250 slugging percentage, and a tremendous 366 wRC+.
Granderson entered Thursday’s memorable contest with just a .208 average and a .780 OPS — all of which is fine for the early goings of the season, but nowhere near what Granderson can accomplish. In the first 12 games of the season Granderson was getting the ball to pull, where he hit .445 with an absurd 1.049 slugging percentage in 2011, but he wasn’t getting the results.
Jamie Moyer’s Mystical Changeup
Jamie Moyer made major league history Tuesday night in Colorado, becoming the oldest pitcher to record a win, at age 49. I’d also be willing to bet Moyer made history in another fashion: as the first non-knuckleball pitcher to record a win without cracking 80 MPH on the gun. Regardless of if my bet would pay, Moyer’s accomplishment is made all the more impressive by the low numbers flashing on the gun.
How did he do it? As any good pitching coach at any level teaches their pupils: change speeds. Moyer had his changeup working magically Tuesday night, as he drew nine total outs with the pitch — two double plays, two other groundouts, and three flyouts.