Christina Kahrl looks at the reasons for Chris Sale‘s success this season. He extended his record to 7-0 after a one walk, nine strikeouts performance against the Twins Saturday night. Here is the most interesting aspect to Sale’s 2016 in my opinion:
Another thing to note? While Sale is working with much more movement this season, he is also working up in the zone more than ever, as he is putting 47.6 percent of his pitches in the upper half of the zone — again, a career high.
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High strikes in the Cell sound like balls that might get planted in the cheap seats in left field once the weather warms up.
If you look at his batted ball data at FanGraphs, you can see he is getting more fly balls (ball up in the zone), but allowing a lower percentage of HR on those fly balls (batters swinging under the ball, poor contact). This reminds me of Matt Cain at his peak. His four-seam fastball did not drop as much as expected, so batters tended to hit the bottom of the ball, not get it square. Fly balls that don’t leave the park tend to come down in the gloves of a fielder, so a high fly ball rate with a low home run rate is a recipe for success.
I hope to see a 30-game winner again. It is highly unlikely when a pitcher is only getting 32 or 33 starts in a season, and few are allowed to go past seven innings. Sale and Jake Arrieta are playing for teams good enough that they might be able to pull off the feat.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1XfoBz0
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