Daily Notes: A Brief Guide to Yusmeiro Petit’s Start Today

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. A Brief Guide to Yusmeiro Petit’s Start Today
2. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Brief Guide to Yusmeiro Petit’s Start Today
Introduction
In his most recent start, on September 6th against Arizona, 28-year-old Giants right-hander and former half-prospect Yusmeiro Petit retired the first 26 opposing batters he faced en route to a one-hit shutout of the Diamondbacks (box). Notably, this wasn’t even Petit’s most impressive recent start, so far his defense-independent marks are concerned: on September 1st, also against Arizona, he produced a 1.59 single-game xFIP in 6.0 innings (box).

On Wednesday, Petit makes his fourth major-league start (and fifth appearance) of the season — in this case, as ***MLB.TV’s Free Game*** at 3:45pm ET against Colorado. What follows is a brief summary of Petit’s repertoire in preparation for his start today.

Petit’s Repertoire, Last Start
According to the PITCHf/x chart here (featuring speed versus horizontal movement), it appears as though Petit threw four pitches, predominantly — a fastball at 86-90 mph; a slider-cutter situation at 82-85 mph; a slower curve at 74-78 mph, approximately; and then, thrice, a changeup at 80-82 mph.

Action Footage: Petit’s Fastball
At 91.2 mph, this fastball — to strike out Paul Goldschmidt swinging — is the hardest Petit threw in his start against Arizona. Like other fastballs he threw, however, it features considerably less arm-side run than those belonging to other major leaguers’ — only about 3.5 inches’ worth.

Action Footage: Petit’s Slider-Cutter Situation
Petit throws a pitch that’s frequently referred to as — including by the pitcher himself, it seems — a cutter, although, given the offering’s speed and break, a batter is unlikely to distinguish it much from a traditional slider. Here’s an example of the pitch from the seventh inning of Petit’s September 6th start — an 83-mph first strike to outfielder A.J. Pollock.

Action Footage: Petit’s Curve
Petit’s curve has the same general shape as his cutter. Here’s an example of the former, at 77 mph, to strike out rookie Chris Owings for the first out in the ninth.

Action Footage: Petit’s Changeup
Despite the fact that Arizona started three left-handed regulars, plus a left-handed-batting pitcher, Petit used his changeup sparingly against the Diamondbacks lineup. Here’s one of the three total he threw — in this case, at 77 mph but with little depth, to Corbin in the third inning.

Today’s Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire.

Note that these NERD scores are calculated using the methodology introduced recently and designed to account for the influence of playoff odds on the watchability of games. ***Unlike in recent iterations of this table, the author has adjusted the day’s NERD Game Scores such that, combined, they average 5.0.*** This allows said table to resemble more closely the Game Scores that have appeared here over the preceding four months.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
James Shields	KC	5	1	7	6	7	CLE	Scott Kazmir	12:05
Jeff Samardzija	CHN	8	0	4	1	4	CIN	Mike Leake	12:35
A.J. Burnett	PIT	8	6	10	7	6	TEX	Matt Garza	14:05
Juan Nicasio	COL	4	0	3	0	10	SF	Yusmeiro Petit	15:45
Andy Pettitte	NYA	5	3	4	1	3	BAL	Scott Feldman	19:05
Eric Stults	SD	4	0	3	0	9	PHI	Cliff Lee	19:05
C.J. Wilson	LAA	4	0	3	0	9	TOR	R.A. Dickey	19:07
Mike Minor	ATL	8	0	4	0	10	MIA	Jose Fernandez	19:10
Ryan Dempster	BOS	3	0	8	9	7	TB	Alex Cobb	19:10
Dan Haren	WAS	7	0	3	0	6	NYN	Zack Wheeler	19:10
Anibal Sanchez	DET	9	0	3	0	5	CHA	Jose Quintana	20:10
Sonny Gray	OAK	10	7	7	0	1	MIN	Mike Pelfrey	20:10
Marco Estrada	MIL	7	0	8	7	6	STL	Lance Lynn	20:15
Patrick Corbin	AZ	9	0	4	0	7	LAN	Hyun-Jin Ryu	22:10
Brad Peacock	HOU	1	0	1	0	5	SEA	Bran. Maurer	22:10

To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.