Daily Notes: A Brief Review of Burch Smith’s Second Start

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

1. Brief Review: Burch Smith’s Second Start
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Brief Review: Burch Smith’s Second Start
Introduction
San Diego right-hander Burch Smith, owner of both a mid-90s fastball and excellent line in the Double-A Texas League, made his major-league debut last Saturday against Tampa Bay and the results were poor (box). He made his second start last night (Friday) at home against Washington. What follows is a brief review of that second start.

Smith’s Results
Because he conceded three home runs, but because he also posted an 8:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio against just 23 batters, there’s a gap between how many runs Smith conceded and how many one might expect him to concede usually. For example, Smith’s single-game ERA and FIP were 8.44 and 7.90, respectively — which is to say, not ideal. His single-game xFIP, however (which metric normalizes home-run rate per fly ball), was just 2.49 — which is to say, much better. Overall, here’s his line from the Friday night (box): 5.1 IP, 23 TBF, 8 K, 1 BB, 1 GB on 13 batted-balls (7.7% GB), 6 H, 3 HR, 5 R.

Smith’s Pitches
As the PITCHf/x chart below (featuring pitch speed and horizontal movement) reveals, Smith threw somewhere between three and five pitches (depending on how one separates the fastballs): a fastball, a changeup, and a curve.

Smith’s Pitches Relative to Last Start
Here’s a comparison between the chart above relative to one from Smith’s first start — which comparison reveals that, among other things, Smith threw many more changeups and also a collection of fastballs with more significant arm-side run.

Four Lessons Regarding Smith
Below are four lessons we might take from Smith’s Friday start.

Lesson One: Smith’s Fastball Is Pretty Excellent
According to Brooks Baseball, Smith threw 59 fastballs and induced swinging strikes on 12 of them — a rate considerably above league average for a fastball.

Here he is, for example, throwing a high fastball past Bryce Harper in the first inning:

Lesson Two: That Said, It Has a Tendency to Run Back Over the Plate
More than once, Smith threw to a target on the edge of the zone, only to have his fastball tail back towards the middle of it (i.e. the zone). Here’s an example of that from the fifth inning, on an 0-2 pitch to Ryan Zimmerman which would have ideally not been as hittable as it became:

Lesson Three: Smith’s Changeup Can Also Be Pretty Excellent
Smith induced an even higher percentage of swinging strikes on his changeup than on his fastball (35.3%) — this, after throwing the pitch just twice in his debut.

Here’s an example of Smith’s change from the fifth inning against the generally contact-oriented Denard Span:

Lesson Four: Smith’s Curve Isn’t a Swing-and-Miss Pitch, At All
Of the 32 pitches Smith threw on a two-strike count, only three of them (so, less than 10%) were curves and none of them bothered hitters much.

Here, for example, is the only curve Smith threw to a right-hander (in this case, Ian Desmond) on a two-strike count:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Los Angeles NL at Atlanta | 19:10 ET
Chris Capuano (15.0 IP, 101 xFIP-, -0.1 WAR) faces Kris Medlen (49.2 IP, 120 xFIP-, 0.0 WAR). After difficulties in each of his first two starts, Capuano was considerably better in this third one this past Sunday against Miami, also showing increased velocity on his sinker.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Atlanta Radio.

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. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.8.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Jeremy Hefner	NYN	3	7	3	4	2	CHN	Scott Feldman	13:05
Joe Saunders	SEA	1	5	4	9	5	CLE	Zach McAllister	13:05
Brandon Morrow	TOR	2	4	4	5	6	NYA	David Phelps*	13:05
Hector Santiago	CHA	8	0	6	5	5	LAA	Joe Blanton	16:05
Bronson Arroyo	CIN	4	4	4	1	5	PHI	Kyle Kendrick	16:05
Rob. Hernandez	TB	6	7	5	8	3	BAL	Jair Jurrjens*	16:05
Erik Bedard	HOU	2	4	6	7	9	PIT	A.J. Burnett	19:05
Bran. McCarthy	AZ	7	4	4	0	3	MIA	Tom Koehler*	19:10
Ryan Dempster	BOS	8	8	6	3	3	MIN	Scott Diamond	19:10
Chris Capuano*	LAN	6	2	5	8	3	ATL	Kris Medlen	19:10
Marco Estrada	MIL	6	6	6	2	6	STL	Lance Lynn	19:15
Anibal Sanchez	DET	10	8	8	4	6	TEX	Justin Grimm	20:05
Tim Lincecum	SF	7	6	7	7	6	COL	Tyler Chatwood*	20:10
J. Zimmermann	WAS	9	3	5	5	2	SD	Eric Stults	20:40
Ervin Santana	KC	8	6	7	6	6	OAK	Tommy Milone	21:05

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.