Washington Nationals: Pitching Meltdowns
Last week, Ron Shandler wrote an article in the USA Today about pitching aces having meltdowns. Shandler defined a meltdown as
any game in which a starting pitcher allows more earned runs than innings pitched
Reading the piece, I started thinking about all of the meltdowns the Nats pitchers have had over the last few years. Then Craig Stammen had a meltdown Tuesday night against the Astros – 5 innings pitched, 5 earned runs. I decided to investigate further.
Nyjer Morgan picked off 1st Base
The Washington Nationals offense has not been as potent this season as fans had hoped and expected. The offense currently ranks 9th in the National League and 16th in Major League Baseball in runs scored. One of the issues plaguing the Nats is the loss of base runners, either by pick off, failed steal attempt, failed extra base attempt, or double play. This year the Nats have even managed the offensive triple play. Outs are the only constant in baseball. You can work around anything else, but each out puts you one step closer to the end of the game. This made me wonder – the stats we see don’t really account for events like Nyjer Morgan caught stealing and Pudge Rodriguez grounding into a double play. How do we show the total out rate for each player? Here’s my post from Federal Baseball…
Washington Nationals: Pitching to Adam Dunn
Last month, I wrote a post on Federal Baseball indicating that MLB pitchers were afraid to pitch to Adam Dunn. At the time, pitchers had thrown 44.49% of pitches to all batters in the strike zone, while only throwing strikes to Dunn 35.05% of the time. As a result, Dunn walked during 30% of his plate appearances. Over the Nats last 20 games, Dunn has walked less and hit more – 10 walks in 70 plate appearances. This 14.29% walk rate is still substantially higher than the major league rate of 8.16% during the same time frame, but is also closer to Dunn’s 16.8% career walk rate. Let’s compare the early season pitches to the pitches Dunn has seen over the last few weeks.
Drew Storen wowed Nats fans in his first Major League appearance on May 17th against the St. Louis Cardinals. After a minor bout of opening night jitters, Storen settled down and showed us why he belongs in the majors. With Pudge Rodriguez calling pitches behind the plate, Storen mixed blazing fastballs, change ups and curve balls to keep the Cardinals hitters off balance. See the pitch sequences on my Federal Baseball post here.
Washington Nationals relief pitcher Brian Bruney has had a disappointing start to the 2010 season. The biggest problem – he’s not throwing strikes.
Strike to Ball Ratio
Through May 12, major league pitchers are throwing a strike to ball ratio of 1.64. Bruney’s rate is a woeful 1.25. Here’s how the Nats pitchers are faring:
Yesterday we looked at the Nationals starting pitchers, their command of the strike zone, and their effectiveness against opposing batters. In 2009, there were 717,003 pitches thrown, 329,641 (46%) were thrown in the strike zone. In April 2010, MLB pitchers threw 103,076 pitches, 46,135 (44.8%) on the zone. While some Nats starters had periodic trouble recording outs, only Jason Marquis had trouble finding the strike zone (30.7%) in April.
The Nats bullpen has been a treat to watch this year. Matt Capps won the MLB Delivery Man of the Month award for his April efforts 10-for-10 in save situations, 0.68 ERA, 15 strikeouts in 13 1/3 innings, and Tyler Clippard is pitching like a real set-up man. See my review of the pen’s performance on my post at Federal Baseball here.
Washington Nationals: April Pitching Review
The Nats finished a modestly successful April with a mix of good and bad starting pitching, and mix of good and bad efforts from the bull pen. How did the Nats starters look under the Pitch F/X microscope? See the review on Federal Baseball here.
Washington Nationals: Pitching with an 0-2 Count
One of the keys to successful pitching is getting ahead of the batter early in the count. The next key is what you do with the favorable count. MLB pitchers get batters into an 0-2 count about 18% of the time. Given this count, the defense records an out approximately 79% of the time. What are the Nat’s pitchers’ success rates with an 0-2 count? Let’s look at the data to find out.
2009 Full Season
First, here’s the 2009 season results on batters in an 0-2 situation:
MLB Umpires – Who gives up the most runs?
In the first few weeks of the 2010 MLB season, there have been several baseball games that have ended with football scores. Last week, on a Washington Nationals broadcast, MASN color commentator Rob Dibble asked, “I wonder if there are some umpires that are more likely to call games with football scores than others?” I went to the 2009 MLB Pitch F/X data to find the answer.
Washington Nationals: Scott Olsen Breaks MLB Gameday?
Scott Olsen pitched a 7 inning shutout against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday, April 25. The official MLB gameday tally, (and thus Pitch F/X tally) showed that Olsen threw 99 pitches. The breakdown – 32 fastballs, 10 sliders, and 57 change ups. What? Did Scott Olsen really throw 57 change-ups? It’s not likely. In Bill Ladson’s post game column, Olsen mentioned that “the slider was working really well. We stayed with that.” In the same article, the Dodger’s Casey Blake said “When he throws that little changeup at 85 [mph], it’s not like a typical left-handed changeup or any changeup. It’s almost like a batting-practice fastball that dives a little bit. We let him off the hook. A lot of times, you do that to a pitcher and the guy sticks around. That’s what we did today.” The question was first asked on FederalBaseball – slider or change-up, what did Olsen throw?
