Daily Notes: A Brief Review of Rick Porcello’s Tuesday Start

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

1. Brief Review: Rick Porcello’s Tuesday Start
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Brief Review: Rick Porcello’s Tuesday Start
Introduction
Detroit right-hander Rick Porcello, known typically for his power sinker and attendant ground-ball rate, recorded numerous career bests against Pittsburgh on Tuesday night with 11 strikeouts, a 1.04 single-game xFIP, and a 4.03 RE24 (which metric measures runs added relative to the 24 base/out states and is useful for measuring single-game performances by hitters or pitchers). What follows is a brief review of that second start.

Porcello’s Results
As noted, Porcello was quite effective on Tuesday. Overall, he posted the lowest single-game xFIP among all of Tuesday’s 26 starting pitchers and second-highest single-game WAR. Here was his line on the night (box): 8.0 IP, 27 TBF, 11 K, 1 BB, 11 GB on 15 batted-balls (73.3%), 0 HR, 3 H, 0 R.

Porcello’s Pitches
Here’s a PITCHf/x chart of what pitches Porcello threw on Tuesday:

Porcello’s Pitches, Relative to Career Rates
Here’s a table comparing Porcello’s pitch mix on Tuesday to his previous established career rates (the latter care of Brooks Baseball):

	Career	Tuesday	Diff
Four-Seam	18%	18%	0 pp
Sinker	51%	38%	-13 pp
Slider	15%	6%	-9 pp
Curve	4%	19%	+15 pp
Changeup	12%	18%	+6 pp

What One Might Conclude
Observing the table above, and noting the difference primarily in sliders (Porcello’s main breaking pitch in the past) thrown relative to curveballs (Porcello’s main breaking pitch on Tuesday), one might conclude that it’s the curve which contributed most directly to his success last night.

While that is a lot to extract from one start, there are real indications — and not merely PITCHf/x classification changes — which demonstrate that Porcello has more or less replaced his slider with his curveball as his main breaking ball. Even more telling, of course, is that Porcello has said as much on a number of occasions this spring. Meanwhile, there are other real indications that Porcello has reached a new level of performance this year so far.

Action Footage: Porcello’s Slider
Here’s a slider by Porcello from the second inning on Tuesday night to Gaby Sanchez:

Action Footage: Porcello’s Curveball
Here’s a curve Porcello threw Sanchez on the pitch directly before that, for a strike looking:

Action Footage: Porcello’s Curveball, Again
Here’s another of Porcello’s curveballs, also from the second inning, in this case (a) in slow motion and (b) for a swinging strikeout versus Pedro Alvarez:

Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Washington at Baltimore | 19:05 ET
Jordan Zimmermann (73.2 IP, 89 xFIP-, 1.9 WAR) faces Chris Tillman (58.2 IP, 101 xFIP-, 0.5 WAR). The former is currently third among all pitchers by WAR calculated using run allowed (as opposed to FIP).

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington 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 5.3.

Note: the following table is entirely sortable.

Away		SP	Tm.	Gm.	Tm.	SP		Home	Time
John Danks*	CHA	6	0	4	5	2	CHN	Scott Feldman	14:20
John Lackey	BOS	8	7	5	1	3	PHI	Kyle Kendrick	19:05
Bronson Arroyo	CIN	4	6	6	9	7	CLE	Justin Masterson	19:05
Anibal Sanchez	DET	10	7	9	7	9	PIT	A.J. Burnett	19:05
Jeremy Hefner	NYN	3	6	4	5	4	NYA	David Phelps	19:05
Jor. Zimmermann	WAS	9	2	6	9	4	BAL	Chris Tillman	19:05
Rob. Hernandez	TB	6	7	6	1	8	MIA	Tom Koehler*	19:10
Esmil Rogers*	TOR	3	6	5	9	4	ATL	Kris Medlen	19:10
Bran. McCarthy	AZ	6	4	6	4	6	TEX	Justin Grimm	20:05
Marco Estrada	MIL	6	5	5	2	5	MIN	Samuel Deduno*	20:10
Luis Mendoza	KC	3	6	5	2	7	STL	Lance Lynn	20:15
Erik Bedard	HOU	0	4	4	7	6	COL	Tyler Chatwood	20:40
Chris Capuano	LAN	5	2	5	5	7	LAA	Jered Weaver*	22:05
Joe Saunders	SEA	1	6	3	7	2	SD	Eric Stults	22:10
Tommy Milone	OAK	5	6	6	4	7	SF	Tim Lincecum	22:15

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.