Daily Notes: A Brief Review of Jose Alvarez’s Sunday Start

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

1. A Brief Review of Jose Alvarez’s Sunday Start
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

A Brief Review of Jose Alvarez’s Sunday Start
Introduction
Left-hander Jose Alvarez, signed by Detroit this past November to a minor-league contract, made his major-league debut on Sunday afternoon after recording the second-highest strikeout rate (25.8%) and highest strikeout-walk differential (20.7%) among qualified starters in the Triple-A International League. What follows is a very brief review of his first career start.

Alvarez’s Results
Alvarez was excellent on Sunday, recording a 7:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 6.0 innings and the lowest single-game xFIP among all of Sunday’s 32 starting pitchers. Here’s his overall line (box): 6.0 IP, 22 TBF, 7 K, 1 BB, 9 GB on 14 batted-balls (64.3%), 1 HR, 3 H, 1 R.

Alvarez’s Pitches
MLB’s Gameday algorithm had some difficulty with Alvarez, classifying what appear to be two different breaking pitches both as a slider. As the annotated PITCHf/x chart below (featuring pitch speed and horizontal movement) demonstrates, though, the distinction between the two isn’t entirely clear.

Overall, it seems as though Alvarez threw four-plus pitches: anywhere from one to three different fastballs (four-seam, two-seam, cut), a slider, a curve, and a changeup.

Alvarez’s Breaking Pitch: Example One
Here’s an example of one pitch that was classified as a slider, Alvarez’s slowest pitch of the day — a 73 mph breaking ball for a called first strike to Michael Bourn in the third inning:

Alvarez’s Breaking Pitch: Example Two
Here’s a second breaking pitch, at 78 mph, by Alvarez — from later in that same at-bat, actually, for a swinging strike three:

Alvarez’s Breaking Pitch: Example Three
Finally, here’s another pitch that was classified as a slider — in this case, at 86 mph to Nick Swisher for a called strike. Incidentally, Tigers broadcaster Rod Allen referred to this one as a cut fastball.

Alvarez’s Best Pitch
According both to Gameday’s PITCHf/x data and also to Brooks Baseball, Alvarez’s most effective pitch on Sunday was his changeup, saving somewhere between 1.6 and 1.8 runs relative to average. According to Brooks, Alvarez threw the change 21 times and got three swinging strikes on it.

Action Footage: Jose Alvarez’s Changeup
Here’s the best footage from Sunday of Alvarez’s changeup — in this case to Yan Gomes for a strikeout in the second inning. Unfortunately, because of the off-center camera angle, it’s difficult to get a full sense of the pitch’s arm-side fade.

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Los Angeles AL at Baltimore | 19:05 ET
Jered Weaver (23.0 IP, 116 xFIP-, 0.5 WAR) faces Freddy Garcia (38.1 IP, 110 xFIP-, -0.4 WAR). The former has been rather good in two starts since returning from the DL, recording a 12:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and conceding just two runs in 12.0 innings.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Baltimore 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 5.4.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
Jered Weaver	LAA	2	6	3	9	2	BAL	Freddy Garcia	19:05
John Lackey	BOS	7	9	8	6	8	TB	Alex Cobb	19:10
Yovani Gallardo	MIL	5	4	4	0	4	MIA	Ricky Nolasco	19:10
Homer Bailey	CIN	9	5	6	5	3	CHN	Scott Feldman	20:05
Scott Kazmir	CLE	6	8	6	4	6	TEX	Josh Lindblom*	20:05
Doug Fister	DET	7	7	5	5	3	KC	Jeremy Guthrie	20:10
R.A. Dickey	TOR	8	6	5	0	2	CHA	Dylan Axelrod	20:10
Wade Miley	AZ	5	3	6	2	9	LAN	Clay. Kershaw	22:10
Julio Teheran	ATL	7	8	5	7	0	SD	Jason Marquis	22:10
Dallas Keuchel	HOU	5	4	6	6	7	SEA	His. Iwakuma	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.