Jays vs. Red Sox, Aug. 28-30

[Schad]

Because someone had to.

[zilby]

haha ok. great thread

[Schad]

Yikes, that was almost the end of Snider's knee.

[tsherkin]

Wow. That was a little disappointing; Snider's strikeout was definitely predicted. Hugely disappointing, but expected. He's a rook, so no big deal, but that was a disappointing loss. Ah well, Richmond did OK, but the two-run homer he gave up to Bay was the death knell, and of course, Tallet didn't help by giving up the winning run and boosting his already lamentable ERA.\

*sigh*

At least Hill another dinger.

[youngLion]

Yikes, that was almost the end of Snider's knee.

Wow this is the last thing I want to be reading in any ST for the rest of the year. Hill and Lind are great, but without some more offensive hope next season would be very bleak.

[Garmfay]

Brandon League should come in next game and drill Youk or someone with a 99 MPH heater. I mean Scut gets drilled in the head and Bard almost killed Barajas with a 99 MPH heater to the head. Something has to be done

[zilby]

Brandon League should come in next game and drill Youk or someone with a 99 MPH heater. I mean Scut gets drilled in the head and Bard almost killed Barajas with a 99 MPH heater to the head. Something has to be done

Ozzie Guillen is that you?

[zilby]

i just looked at the replays because i missed the game, and snider touched the plate before varitek tagged him. you could easily see he brushed it with his foot.

[Garmfay]

Brandon League should come in next game and drill Youk or someone with a 99 MPH heater. I mean Scut gets drilled in the head and Bard almost killed Barajas with a 99 MPH heater to the head. Something has to be done

Ozzie Guillen is that you?

Well Youk the douche and Bay did get HBP tonight

[s e n s i]

3:1 League gives up a jack here.

[Throwback24]

Thhis is great.

[Garmfay]

Doc must be hurt. 3 Straight bad outings in a row. I remember an article where a scout was saying Doc looked like he was hurt.

[tsherkin]

Coming INTO this game, Doc has looked like crap (comparatively) this month.

In August, he's posted a 4.50 ERA, guys are hitting .320 against him, and had a WHIP of ~ 1.3. 4.50 is really bad because his ERA on the season was 2.68 coming into this month.

SO far, he's given up 6 hits and 4 runs over 4 innings. He's in the zone, but he's getting hit. Youk has burned him twice, once for a double and once on that sac fly. And he gave up the homer to Baldelli. Not a great game.

Something's up, he doesn't look like Doc, he looks like a 4th or 5th starter who's not getting it done. It's not a velocity issue and he's not having trouble keeping the ball in the zone, so what is it? Is he just missing spots? I'm not watching the game atm, anyone want to guess?

[tsherkin]

Before tonight, Hallady's HR/9 for August was 1.2, compared to a seasonal HR/9 of 0.9. That's going up again tonight, I'd think, so he's getting tagged with dingers more often this month.

[zilby]

Before tonight, Halladay's HR/9 for August was 1.2, compared to a seasonal HR/9 of 0.9. That's going up again tonight, I'd think, so he's getting tagged with dingers more often this month.

i think its like Jose from last year on the raptors. that groin injury is most likely still nagging him and will for the rest of the year most likely.

[wicked_crossova]

We suck.

[Geddy]

I wonder how much this will affect Roy's value at the end of the season.

[tsherkin]

Before tonight, Halladay's HR/9 for August was 1.2, compared to a seasonal HR/9 of 0.9. That's going up again tonight, I'd think, so he's getting tagged with dingers more often this month.

i think its like Jose from last year on the raptors. that groin injury is most likely still nagging him and will for the rest of the year most likely.

Well, it's Doc, right? I can't imagine he's throwing games, he doesn't look like he's missing any velocity and he's not about to radically regress for no reason after a half-decade plus of being the best pitcher in baseball. Something's obviously wrong.

What to say...

This section can mostly be skipped, I'm just reviewing his pitch selection, velocity and location in-depth.

Bwar, Bear Witness to Tyler's Inane Attention to Detail

First inning, Victor Martinez's double, Halladay missed the zone pretty badly to start, but the cutter Martinez hit was a 91 mph cutter inside that he just turned on, so that was just bad luck. Youk's RBI double was a curveball low in the zone that followed an 86 mph changeup. I probably would have gone with the cutter near the outside edge (in principle), and he left it out over the middle of the plate, but that's still a pretty good pitch.

He threw pretty much everything inside and out of the zone to Ortiz on that walk; the way Papi's been smacking us around lately, I'm not surprised that he was being ginger, but he wasn't anywhere near the zone on 5 of those 6 pitches. Then he struck Drew out... but he missed the zone with his cutter and Drew basically just swung himself out.

Baldelli's homer was a cutter at the top of the zone over the middle of the plate, which is almost as bad as a meatball in the center of the zone. The preceding pitch was ANOTHER cutter that missed the zone glove-side. Next batter, weak heater to the middle of the zone, then a cutter up and in for the fly-out. Got Gonzalez good with a couple of 2-seamers that really moved and then ultimately on a cutter... out of the zone, glove-side.

Pitchf/x says those were the first two 2-seamers he threw all game, which is odd for a guy known for his sinker. Him getting fewer groundouts and getting dinged with homers more often could be him not throwing enough of the sinker/2-seamer, if that's the case. Or it could be Pitchf/x misclassifying pitches. 5 fastballs and a curveball to Ellsbury for the pop-out, Halladay finally hitting that down-and-inside corner with the three fastballs he threw there.

Pedroia's double was on a curveball on the outside edge of the bottom third of the zone, down and away. Good pitch, bad luck. The first pitch to Martinez being called a ball was a joke, but ultimately, he hit a cutter down and in, right at the edge of the zone for a groundout that put Pedroia on 3rd, setting up...

Youk's RBI double, which came on an arrow-straight, 92 mph fastball on the inside edge of the zone, somewhere around belt level (right in the center of the vertical part of the zone). Not the wisest of pitches (or perhaps a missed pitch). He got an out, but it was also an RBI.

Changeup nowhere near the zone away, cutter that missed (of all places...) inside (glove-side), cutter on the edge, up and away (nice pitch) and then a curveball that Halladay's lucky stayed in the zone, because it was right up the pipe. I guess the velocity change and the break on it was nasty enough to keep Ortiz was walloping that but the ball was right in the middle of the zone. The fly-out was lucky.

Drew's at-bat, first of the 4th, Halladay was losing steam. His cutter was at 89 mph, his change at 84 and his 4-seam at 92 mph, all 1 or 2 mph slower than the previous 3 innings. Cutter slightly down and in, changeup that should have been a strike but was called a ball, a cutter that missed (you guessed it) deep glove-side, then a 4-seamer up and in on the edge of the zone. Not a bad pitch, but at 91 mph, that's an average fastball and Drew got a single.

Hung a curveball for called strike one, BADLY missed a second curve, crappy fastball up and away for a ball, hung ANOTHER curve in the upper part of the zone for called strike 2, then nicked the zone up and away with a cutter for called strike three. The curveball worked, I guess, but that's not a great place to throw it, and certainly not twice. Still, the result speaks and Baldelli went down.

Cutter up and in, then a cutter down (but mostly over the plate) for a ground-out, but Drew got to second.

Two-seamer in the upper third of the zone, over the middle of the plate, and Gonzalez had an RBI single. A cutter up and in got Ellsbury to ground out.

Pedroia was a long at-bat to open up the 5th. Cutter up and away and then a two-seamer on the edge of the middle third of the zone for 0-2. Crappy changeup and another cutter way the hell out of the zone glove-side and it's 2-2. Fastball out of the zone away fouled off, fastball way inside arm-side for 3-2, then a cutter out of the zone for a weak groundout to second.

Two-seamer, 0-1; SKETCHY call on a changeup down for 1-1. Curveball down and out of the zone, 2-1. Cutter on the inside edge of the middle of the zone, 2-2. Fastball up and away, flied out to Vernon.

Noticing from the Pitchf/x break data that Halladay started to throw more of that fastball that bent arm-side in the 4th and 5th inning so far, so he was getting that movement on his two-seamer, or maybe more life from his 4-seamer (the "2-seamer" in that at-bat was 93 mph).

Curveball up and in to Youk. Called strike, but that's still an effing terrible place to hang a curveball. Cutter up and away, out of the zone, swinging strike, 0-2. Missed badly on consecutive curveballs down and away, 2-2. Two-seamer (or lively 4-seam, it was 93 mph) that stayed out of the zone beside the middle third of the zone generously called strike three and down goes Youk to end the inning. Still, Doc was getting more arm-side bend on is pitches at this point and, except for that curveball, was making better pitches. His cutter got progressively better (albeit slowly) to this point and his 4-seam/2-seam/whatever he was throwing was getting him more ground-outs. Don't know why the Hell he wasn't throwing it like that earlier.

Three cutters to Ortiz to open up the 6th; one in the zone, edge of the middle third, fouled away. Another one, missed outside of the zone, glove-side, ball. Then another to the same spot as the first, slapped into right for the single. Pitching a middling cutter up and in to Ortiz isn't a great idea, at least not basically three times and without changing speeds. Maybe he was pitching to contact, but then he should have been looking down and away. That he threw it there on 3 consecutive pitches suggests he wasn't missing his spot.

Continuing to throw his curveball up and in the zone, Halladay opened the at-bat against Drew with a 93 mph fastball that bent like a 2-seamer but missed high and away. Curveball in the middle of the zone, called strike. 4-seam (just about arrow straight) up and in, called strike 2. Curveball right down the middle of the plate, swinging strike three. I can't tell if Halladay's doing that on purpose or if he's just getting lucky; conventional wisdom holds that you don't hang the curveball up and/or over the middle of the plate, but he got away with it basically all game. And when he was looking to hit the corners down, he was sending it into the dirt. I'm thinking his command was off and he got lucky, but maybe the velocity change made it enough and he really wanted to make sure he threw it for a strike, I don't know.

Bendy fastball down over the middle of the plate, 1-0. Arrow-straight heater down and away, 2-0 (missed badly). Two curveballs to the exact same spot (the corner low and away), both swinging misses, 2-2. Curveball to the inside edge of the middle third (arm-side for Doc), called a ball but it really wasn't. 3-2. Curveball over the center of the plate, bottom third, popped out to short. Not the most creative at-bat, but it worked and it would have been his 6th strikeout if the ump hadn't jacked him on that third curveball. Whatever, he got his 6th strikeout next. This at-bat reinforces my idea that he was missing his curveball earlier in the game.

Three-pitch strikeout here. Hung a curveball in the middle third of the zone, away, called strike. Sent another curveball over the middle of the plate but at the bottom edge of the zone, swinging strike. Then he threw a 92 mph two-seam that bent sharply and hit the corner down and away, called third strike. He does that sometimes; you don't see him throw that a lot, but Doc can throw a 2-seam that bends like a real nasty SOB late, instead of sinking. I have often wondered why we don't see it more, because it's BRUTAL, especially against lefties down and in.

And that was Doc.

Not a terrible game, but he made some mistakes, got burned, got unlucky a few other times, and he had some issues. It's a small sample, but I haven't seen him throwing a lot of the sinking stuff that he's known for of late.

It's hardly super-meaningful, but his weighted linear weight on his fastball is the lowest it's been since 2003.... but that was his Cy Young year, and the only pitch that was favorably weighted for him that year was his curveball, though he threw it at a career-high rate (and no cutter).

In any case, the absence of sinking stuff was noticeable this game; he was using a 4-seam and his 2-seam, when it happened, was bending laterally and not really sinking... AND he wasn't really throwing his fastball DOWN at all. Almost all of his pitches were up and in, up and away or in the middle third on either side, though he did attack down on a few guys. But yeah, mostly, he was throwing up high in the zone.

For anyone that actually READ all that, thoughts, comments? Up in the zone and missing glove-side more often than not with his cutter, hanging his curveball, not using his 2-seam a lot, not getting his fastball into the bottom third, is this why Doc's looked so bad this month? Is this related to his groin injury?

If we look at his game graphs, I'm sure I could see a trend if there is one. The speed on his changeup has been REALLY wild this year, which is a big difference from the last two years; he's actually pretty steady with his velocity, so his erratic changeup speed is a little weird and catches the eye. It's bounced between 77 and 87 mph or so this year, ALL year. He's not getting his curveball to sink as much as he has previously, his cutter isn't getting as much horizontal movement to it and his fastball(s) aren't sinking as much as they were even as they did at the beginning of the year.

So, at least trend-wise, his stuff's off. He's got the velocity, but his cutter isn't biting as hard and he's not getting as much sink to his 4-seam and 2-seam fastball. He's also not throwing the 2-seam as much as he has in the past.

[Mustard_Tiger]

He had a 36:5 K/BB ratio this month despite the struggles. And keep in mind, he was facing the best hitting teams in baseball throughout the month, too.

Really...it can quite easily be explained by a rise in BABIP (or in other words, luck). He's fine. I just wish he could face a team easier than the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox...then he'd be able to easily prove that to the doubters.

[Mustard_Tiger]

Before tonight, Hallady's HR/9 for August was 1.2, compared to a seasonal HR/9 of 0.9. That's going up again tonight, I'd think, so he's getting tagged with dingers more often this month.

He's struggling in this area, but facing NYY, BOS, and TAM every start will do that to you.