Ranma wrote:Neddy wrote:I'm sorry but Alex didn't pitch well enough to deserve a win. he couldn't get through 6 innings while giving up 5 earned runs along the way of generous giving of 6 hits and 3 walks while clocking 5.0 innings of work. that's nearly 2 WHIP for this game. a couple of his 5 strike outs were also by the grace of questionable calls. we can say it was an aberration of being at mile high, but the truth is, Alex had now out of his 4 starts, only 1 that was good.
we need Ryu back badly. we need McCarthy back badly.
I'm going to disagree a bit here. He may have gotten some generous calls from the umps, but that was him adjusting to and taking advantage of Grandal's pitch-framing. I acknowledge that he fell apart mentally when his teammates' defense behind him was snowballing towards disaster, but he was cruising early and would have given us 6 quality innings IMO were it not for the collapse in Coors. He bears responsibility for some of that, but most of the culpability lies with our poor defense.
Of course, his teammates gave him the lead to begin with, but if Trayce had judged that flyball in LF properly in the 5th inning, Alex wouldn't have had to waste all those pitches or experience the meltdown before Puig's amazing catch in RF. Yeah, he needs to keep his focus but that was really pushing the limits.
I'm also inclined to consider him for the bullpen, but he's been pitching fairly well for the season, for the most part. What I mean is that he showed some encouraging signs. I'd like to see him continued to be given the chance to show what he can do and build on his time as a starting pitcher.
if a starting pitcher in the majors can get rattled so terribly by one or two bad defensive play, although in a classic statistical sense, they would be "un-earned runs" but it was still runs given up from pitches you made imo. Alex had a plenty of chances to keep his start a quality start. he didn't, more accurately he couldn't. and frankly I don't think it is his fault. unless your name is sandy koufax, you will not become a successful starting pitcher in the majors with just two pitches. he has a fastball, and he has a slider. although typically a slider can work very well next to a quality fastball in a short term, essentially you have no off-speed pitch nor do you have a breaking ball that works on a vertical plain. what Alex has to offer as of 2016, to me at least, is best suited for a relief. I consider the very minimal starter's arsenal to be what Ismael Valdez had back in the late 90s, a fastball, curveball, and a changeup. and that curve can be replaced with either a slider or a splite/forkball type that is significanty different from change up in terms of its speed and vertical/lateral plain of movement. the reasoning should be obvious. fastball/changeup is the best and most basic combo in baseball, if one can locate his pitches. say a 90+ fastball on both sides of the plate can be worked on with change up that can also be thrown on both sides of the plate as well as being 10 or more mph off while keeping the same throwing motion, you have a way to take away the timing. a slider or a curve now can be utilized to work not only in terms of timing, but the dimentions of the location you must target as a hitter changes either laterally or vertically, or both. Alex doesn't have a quality changeup to make it work, and his two pitch toolbox is not plus/plus pitches to get away with no off-speed. he has to work his location at all times to be effective and frankly, nobody outside of Greg Maddux can do such a thing for a long run.
Kershaw is great because he has the mental as well as phyiscal tools while his top three pitches are all plus pitches.
Maeda is working out partly because he is unknown but mostly because he can work both lateral and vertical planes while keeping the timing off-balance.
Ryu was doing well for us because he has the similar make up as Maeda but being a lefty also added to his favor.
Stripling is so far doing well because his first go to pitch is his curve, then his fastball. from there he can work the lateral planes with "show-me" pitches which I am sure when the league figures it out, we will need a new 5th starter. but for now it is working better than Alex because a fastball/slider pitcher with no off-speed stuff, will be eventually figured out by any hitter if given more than 1-2 at bats in a game.
ehhhhh f it.
