Games of the Day

The Rays play the traditional Patriots day game against the Red Sox with Blake Snell facing Steven Wright. Snell reached 100 MLB innings for his career in his last outing. The results are mixed but positive. His strikeout rate is high and his home run rate is low, but he walks a ton of batters. Combine the walk numbers with higher averages allowed with men on base, and you get a good, but not great ERA. Wright’s last start was a disaster as he allowed four home runs in 1 1/3 innings. He allowed five on the season so far, after giving up 12 in all of 2016.

The White Sox try to stop the Yankees winning streak as they send Derek Holland against rookie Jordan Montgomery. Holland is off to a good start, with just five hits allowed in 12 innings. Batters are hitting fly balls against him at a high rate, but so far none have left the park.

There is a big difference between the way Sports (Baseball) Info Solutions sees Holland’s pitch repertoire, and the way the pitch tracking systems see it. SIS has Holland throwing a much lower percentage of fastballs this season, with more emphasis on his three breaking balls, the slider, curve ball, and straight change. For the last few seasons, PITCHf/x had him throwing nearly no fastballs. It would appear that what SIS classified as a FB, PITCHf/x called sinker. Note that it was not a two-seam fastball, but an actual sinker. With TrackMan in use this season, he’s showing a fastball percentage more in line with SIS. He is throwing fewer sinkers, however. I suspect that hitters are very used to the sinker against Holland, and are swinging under pitches that don’t sink, hitting high fly balls instead of home runs. We’ll see how quickly the batters adjust to the new pitching style. Maybe Don Cooper deserves some credit here.

Montgomery pitched to mixed results in his first start. On the positive side, he struck out seven and walked two in 4 2/3 innings. On the down side, he only pitched 4 2/3 innings, allowing three runs, two earned.

Chase Anderson brings his K game to Wrigley as the Brewers play the Cubs and John Lackey. Anderson allowed just six hits in his first 13 innings, thanks in part to 11 strikeouts. Batters are having a tough time squaring up the ball against Anderson, as only 12.9% of the batted balls against him went as line drives. Lackey, at seasonal age 38, still brings it. He struck out 17 batters so far in just 12 innings. When batters do get the bat on the ball, however, they do well, with a .321 BABIP.

Finally, the surprising Diamondbacks take the on the Dodgers with Robbie Ray battling Brandon McCarthy. Effectively wild describes Ray’s season so far, as he struck out 14 and walked eight in 12 innings, but allowed just seven hits. McCarthy’s low ERA comes from stopping the opposition with men on base, as opponents are 1 for 17 against him with runners on, and 0 for 7 against him with runners in scoring position.

Enjoy!

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2ppTEib