Daily Notes, In Which R.A. Dickey Throws a Changeup
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Action Footage: R.A. Dickey Throws a Changeup
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Action Footage: R.A. Dickey Throws a Changeup
A Thing That R.A. Dickey Did Yesterday
A thing that Mets right-hander R.A. Dickey did on Thursday was to tie his career-high in strikeouts, with 13.
Another Thing R.A. Dickey Did Yesterday
Another thing R.A. Dickey did on Thursday was to record his 12th strikeout — against Pirates outfielder Garrett Jones in the eighth inning — was to record it via the changeup, a pitch he throws about one percent of the time or zero percent of the time.
Dickey’s Eighth-Inning Changeup
Here’s an animated GIF of the changeup Dickey threw to Garrett Jones in the eighth inning yesterday for his (i.e. Dickey’s) 12th strikeout:
Dickey’s Same Eighth-Inning Changeup, Except Slower
Here’s slow-motion footage of that same changeup R.A. Dickey threw to Garrett Jones in the eighth inning yesterday:
Dickey’s Eighth-Inning Changeup, The Slowest
Here’s the slowest available footage of that same changeup from R.A. Dickey — still to Garrett Jones, and still in the eighth inning of yesterday’s game:
Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
San Francisco at San Diego | 22:05 ET
Left-hander, and former independent league pitcher, Andrew Werner makes his seventh major-league start. Here’s his entirely competent line through the first six of them: 33.0 IP, 22.3% K, 8.6% BB, 57.0% GB, 3.57 SIERA, 92 xFIP-, 0.1 WAR.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco 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 3.7.
Note: the following Game Scores include the poorly conceived playoff-odds adjustment discussed in a recent edition of Daily Notes. Also note: the following table is entirely sortable.
| Away | SP | Tm. | Gm. | Tm. | SP | Home | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aaron Cook | BOS | 2 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 | BAL | Chris Tillman | 19:05 |
| Homer Bailey | CIN | 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 8 | PIT | A.J. Burnett | 19:05 |
| Will Smith | KC | 3 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 4 | CLE | David Huff* | 19:05 |
| Hiroki Kuroda | NYA | 6 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 4 | TOR | Chad Jenkins* | 19:07 |
| Cliff Lee | PHI | 10 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | MIA | Mark Buehrle | 19:10 |
| Jon Niese | NYN | 7 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 4 | ATL | Tim Hudson | 19:35 |
| Jered Weaver | LAA | 4 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 6 | TEX | Ryan Dempster | 20:05 |
| Drew Smyly | DET | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | MIN | Scott Diamond | 20:10 |
| Edgar Gonzalez* | HOU | 6 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 6 | MIL | Yovani Gallardo | 20:10 |
| Jer. Hellickson | TB | 4 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 | CHA | Gavin Floyd | 20:10 |
| Edwin Jackson | WAS | 8 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 8 | STL | Adam Wainwright | 20:15 |
| Travis Wood | CHN | 3 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 5 | AZ | Ian Kennedy | 21:40 |
| Blake Beavan | SEA | 3 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 7 | OAK | A.J. Griffin | 22:05 |
| Ryan Vogelsong | SF | 3 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 7 | SD | Andrew Werner | 22:05 |
| Jeff Francis | COL | 5 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 10 | LAN | Clayton Kershaw | 22:10 |
To learn more about Pitcher and Team NERD scores click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
PITCHf/x apparently categorized it as a knuckleball, ignoring the obvious rotation on the pitch. It had about a foot of tailside run. Not bad.
The slowest-motion GIF made me silently “ooooh” at my screen in delight.
Boy, that’s a nasty pitch. Look at the movement! 75 MPH. Awesome.
In the slo-mo it looks to me like a screwball. It looks like it is spinning strong left to right (from the pitchers perspective) and nearly flat. The label on the ball in the slo-mo really shows the rotation.
Fabulous – what a great out pitch against lefties.
More than a few changeups could legitimately be called screwballs. Rodney, for instance.
It’s a screwball.
People just think the screwball will hurt your arm, so they don’t call it that.
Change-ups and screwballs (and two-seamers) are on the same continuum, with that pitch well over toward the screwball side.
The beauty of that pitch is that, when thrown by a righty, it has the same effect on lefties as a slider.
Eh, GIF(s) of the year.
wtf? not only is that a clear change. its a ridulously awesome change. unhittable. 5hats a 2004 johan santanna change. if dickey can do that what can stop this freaking g. the 2012 apocalypse happens when dickey, in his bafk yard, throws 3 of those in a row thereby tearing a hole in space time that the solar system spirals into. that might be the pitch of the year. up there with that bundy curve ball gif from a couple weeks agouy f4om conquering the world and ending life as we know it?
and thank you Samsung galaxy for not only mangling the spelling but also somehow transposing entire sentences
SNY had a great shot in which they showed the ball leaving Dickey’s hand and you could clearly see the “circle” with his thumb and index finger.
Is there any way to find some of the most off-balance/I’m-sorry-I-hurt-your-ego type of swings/pitches? I’d guess this would rank pretty high.
http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/tom-wilhelmson.gif
Good one. Here’s another
http://media.photobucket.com/image/javier/PIMP000CHICKEN/votto-strikeout-o.gif?o=14&filter=newest
Jones’ swing illustrates the nastiness of that pitch just about as much as the actual movement of the ball.
Wow, look how casually Thole set’s up. Obviously not the most striking thing about this video, but it deserves to be enjoyed.
It’s how he catches Dickey all the time. Doug Mirabelli (Wakefield’s former personal catcher) told him to face the second baseman when he catches the Knuckleball and to relax his hand/wrist since it’s all reaction to the ball’s natural movement anyways.
Reminds me a bit of this
http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs/335876_o.gif
Wow. That’s beautiful.
This guy MUST be the CY winner this year.
It’ll go to Gonzalez, probably.
If the Mets had stayed in contention, well… maybe.
But Gonzalez has an extra Win, so he has it pretty well wrapped up.
Says who, O seer and/or revelator?
Dickey has more IP, SOs, better ERA, more Ks, less losses and he wrote a motherfucking book.
“But Gonzalez has an extra Win, so he has it pretty well wrapped up.”
Moronic.
Seriously, you think 1 extra win (or 2 or 3 or even 4) will make a difference in the CY voting? Not on its own. At least it shouldn’t and I don’t think it will.
Dickey has superior numbers to Gio in most pitching categories, including the more important ones of ERA and WHIP. He also has more strikeouts, innings, shutouts, complete games, and quality starts.
As of right now, Dickey deserves the CY, and I think he’ll get it.