Santana vs Verlander

Great pitching matchup in Detroit yesterday: Johan Santana vs. Justin Verlander. The Twins won fairly easily, 11-1, as Verlander had one of his worst outings of the season (although he was really good for a few innings) and Santana pitched like he always does. Santana's record is a respectable 9-6, but the Twins have scored three runs or less for him in 10 of his 17 starts so far, which is why his win total isn't higher. Santana's the best pitcher in the game today; here's a recap of some random things I noticed about him in this start:

Santana threw a lot of pitches in the first inning, but that wasn't really his fault; he faced five hitters and threw only seven balls. His high pitch total (25) was more due to the fact that guys like Polanco and Guillen were fouling off lots of pitches. Santana did give up two singles to right field; Polanco's was on a fastball up in the zone, and Sheffield's was just a great piece of hitting on a changeup away.

Then, in the second inning, Santana was apparently trying to keep his pitch count down and just throw strikes, as every pitch that inning was a fastball. It worked, too; he sent Pudge, Craig Monroe, and Marcus Thames down in order on only eight pitches. He was lucky to be facing poor hitters, though; both Monroe and Thames saw good pitches up in the zone, but each managed no more than a flyout. Santana resumed mixing in his off-speed after that, although he all but abandoned his slider after the fourth.

Santana's changeup is arguably the best pitch in all of baseball, but he didn't seem to be using it as often as usual. He was throwing more fastballs, but he was still effective. His fastball must have a lot of movement, because the Tigers were fouling a lot of his pitches straight back (meaning they were timing it okay, but couldn't make clean contact). He didn't really have very good command of his slider when he was throwing it, putting it in the strike zone only three of nine times.

Santana's fastball was in the 93-94 range all day, though I've been skeptical of Comerica Park velocity readings ever since last postseason, when all the Tigers pitchers mysteriously added three mph to their fastball. I seem to remember him being more in the 91-92 range when I saw him at the Metrodome last summer. Regardless, his fastball-change combo is very effective, as he takes a good 10 mph off his change (consistantly at 83).

The thing I would be worried about is that Santana was leaving way too many fastballs up in the zone; his change and slider were mostly down, but his fastball was often above the belt. Polanco put one of his fastballs over the left-field fence, and Guillen and Thames each hit warning-track flyballs that might have been homers in another ballpark. I'm guessing this has been fairly common for Santana this season, as his HR rate is at a career high.

As for Verlander...he was great in the second through fourth innings, but he gave up two runs in the first and four in the fifth. In both cases, control was the issue. Verlander walked Jason Bartlett and Joe Mauer in the first to load the bases; Bartlett and Luis Castillo both scored that inning. In the fifth, Verlander walked Jason Tyner to lead off the inning, and then walked Castillo and Bartlett to load the bases again, setting the state for a rare Joe Mauer grand slam. Control problems often are among the first signs of pitcher fatigue. Verlander was pulled after five innings, but he still threw 99 pitches because he was so ineffective. I still believe that Verlander will end up on the DL or with a very bad stretch at some point this season, and this start showed why.

A couple other random thoughts:

Boy, Placido Polanco sure is a battler, isn't he? He saw 16 pitches in three at-bats against Santana, ending up with two hits.

Santana sure knows who to pitch to...Sheffield only saw one pitch up in the zone, while Marcus Thames and Nefi Perez got a lot of fastballs at the letters.

Curtis Granderson is one of baseball's better young players, and he probably deserves to be in the All-Star game this year. But one thing he still needs to learn is plate discipline. Granderson saw 16 pitches, swung at 10 of them, and only put one into play (a grounder to first). Granderson saw a lot more off-speed than anybody else, due to his free-swinging nature; there are players who can succeed with this attitude (Vlad, Soriano), but it's pretty rare.

One of the Detroit announcers (don't know which one) said this about Nefi Perez: "When playing everyday, Perez is a very good bunter." Wow! Jim Leyland must be a fool for not playing him due to his bunting skills! Why wouldn't Perez play everyday, so he can become an even better bunter? Oh, right, his .297 career OBP. And his career OPS+ of 63 (100 is league-average). And the fact that bunting is pretty much his only offensive skill, and it's a pretty useless one at that.

Random stuff...

I didn't feel like writing anything over the weekend, so here are some random thoughts from the past couple days...

This is going all the way back to Thursday, but Roger Clemens had his worst start of his (short) season to this point in Colorado, giving up four runs in 4 1/3 innings. He struck out six and only walked one, but the two homers he allowed were the problem. I wouldn't be worried about this; I still think he ends up going something like 11-6 with an ERA in the low fours.

What I was more interested in was his splits; I noticed last time that he did poorly against lefties and when hitters put the first pitch into play. Well, hitters seemed to be more aggressive against Clemens this time, putting the first pitch in play three times in just over four innings, but it didn't help them a whole lot; they went just 1-for-3, with the lone hit being a Willy Tavares bunt single. (By the way, fast hitters have been taking advantage of Clemens' 44-year-old legs by bunting a lot off him; he's gonna have to get used to it, because it's not going to stop.) The lefties in the lineup - Kaz Matsui, Todd Helton, and Brad Hawpe - went a combined 2-for-6 with a walk; the righties were 5-for-14 with both homers, and that includes two at-bats by pitcher Rodrigo Lopez. Colorado's righties tend to be more dangerous than their lefties, however, as Garrett Atkins and Matt Holliday are two of the best hitters in the league, and rookie Troy Tulowitzki is hitting very well.

In other follow-up news...Justin Verlander threw again Saturday, and had another really good outing - seven innings, only one earned run, earning him his ninth win of the season. That run came via a homer, which isn't great news; Verlander has been giving up an increasing number of home runs as the season has brogressed. His 11:2 K-BB ratio, however, is excellent news. He was under 100 pitches in his last outing, but was back up to 110 this weekend, which probably isn't good for the Tigers. The one thing I noticed after his no-hitter was that his first-pitch strike percentage had been decreasing throughout the season, causing me to wonder if he was hurt and to predict that he would either get hurt or lose his effectiveness, although he made me look dumb by throwing 17 of 28 first-pitch strikes in his next outing. On Saturday? 15 of 27. He wasn't very effective with his pitches, throwing more than four pitches per hitter, which still isn't a good sign; but it does seem that his first-pitch strike woes were an aberration and not a sign of anything important.

One more pitcher to follow up on: Yovani Gallardo. I wrote about his debut last week, and I was pretty impressed. Well, he actually pitched better yesterday, thrwoing seven innings of one-run ball, although he didn't get a win out of it. Gallardo had eight strikeouts to just two walks and five hits, and kept his pitch count under 100. I wasn't watching the whole game, and I can't find a comprehensive recap online, but from the highlights it seems that Gallardo was using his fastball and slider more instead of relying too heavily on his outstanding curve. His fastball was hitting 93, too, and it would be great if he could eventually get that up into the 95-96 range.

As the calendar turns towards July, trade talk obviously begins to heat up; the White Sox remain the most powerful team on the market. There are some new rumors out that, in addition to Mark Buerhle, Chicago might move some starters who are not free agents at the end of the year, including possibly Jose Contreras and Jon Garland. The Mets are very interested in Contreras, and if the White Sox actually can get Lastings Milledge in return for Contreras or a package centered around him, I think they should definitely do it; Contreras is 35 and not getting any younger, and his ERA+ has gone from 123 in 2005 to just 98 this year (an ERA+ of 100 is league-average).

Meanwhile, the Mets had been the favorite for Buerhle for a while, but on Thursday Jayson Stark said the Braves were the favorite. Then, over the weekend, it became the Red Sox. I wouldn't say it's likely that any team gets him at this point; there are plenty of interested teams, and it's going to take a while for things to sort themselves out. I will say that at this point it doesn't seem likely that he goes to the Mets; the Red Sox and Braves both have more to offer in the way of second-tier prospects, and the Mets have made it clear they aren't including Lastings Milledge in a deal for a three-month rental. The Red Sox don't really make sense as a destination, as they will have five good starters when Jon Lester comes back, but it's possible that Curt Schilling's injury is more serious than people initially thought.

Nobody really seems to know where the top hitters - Adam Dunn, Jermaine Dye, and Mark Teixeira - are going to end up. People around baseball seem to think it's very likely that Dunn gets traded, although I personally don't think he'll leave Cincinatti. Teixeira's been rumored to the Angels, though he doesn't help that lineup all that much, and Bill Stoneman is a relatively conservative GM. The Yankees have had interest, but they aren't going to give up what it takes to get him. The Dodgers seem to be the most likely trade partner at this time, as they have plenty of good young players, but I think Teixeira stays in Texas. He's not a free agent until after the 2008 season, so they'll probably have more success trying to deal him this winter. Dye seems to be the most likely hitter to be dealt, and the Padres seem to want him pretty badly, but teams aren't going to give up too much for him when he's only hitting .230.

Verlander follow-up; Gallardo debut

This is getting a little old, but on Sunday, Justin Verlander made his first start since his no-hitter; it also happened to be the first since I predicted doom for Verlander, in large part because of his high pitch counts and low first-pitch strike percentage. Well, Verlander had a great start in terms of making me look dumb; he went six effective innings, threw first-pitch strikes to 17 of 28 hitters, and his pitch count was under 100. The Philles' broadcast was very inconsistant in showing the pitch velocity, and Verlander seemed to be throwing a lot of off-speed stuff (at least when I was watching), but his fastball, at least by the end of the game seemed to be in the mid-90's, around 94-95. This is a far cry from the 102 he was hitting at the end of his no-hitter, which I think is actually a good sign - it shows that he's not throwing his hardest the entire game, which will probably make him more durable.

Am I going to go back on my original prediction - that Verlander will get hurt or see a significant rise in his ERA by the end of the season? Not yet. I'd still like to see the Tigers be a little more careful with him, and I'd like to see Verlander continue to get ahead in counts. But this was a good start towards a healthy rest of the season for Verlander.

The biggest on-field story of the day yesterday was the debut of the latest pitching phenom, Brewers righty Yovani Gallardo. Overall, the Brewers have to be very pleased with what they saw, getting 6 1/3 innings of three-run ball out of Gallardo. He had trouble getting Barry Bonds out (1/1, 2B, 2 BB), but was very solid against everybody else. Granted, the Giants aside from Barry Bonds certainly aren't one of baseball's better hitting teams, but it's still a great start. Gallardo hit a RBI double in the second inning as well, for whatever that's worth.

Gallardo's stuff is excellent, especially his curveball. He still has a lot to learn about pitching - one of the few at-bats I saw was when he tried to throw three straight breaking balls to Pedro Feliz in the seventh inning; the third one ended in the left-field bleachers. Keith Law agrees with me: (insider-only)

His pitching plan relied on heavy use of his curveball -- probably too much, with Gallardo throwing it on nearly half of his pitches in the first inning, including the hanger that Bengie Molina hit for an RBI single. Gallardo is a three-pitch pitcher, with a solid changeup. But he barely used the change before he pulled it out of his back pocket in the sixth inning. That said, when he began pitching more off his fastball in the second inning, he started rolling, relying on his outstanding command and hitting the lower outside corner repeatedly to keep the Giants' hitters from making solid contact.

Can he be a future ace with just a 91-93 mph fastball? If his command is as good as advertised, he can be, especially with that great curveball he's got. Gallardo's next start is Sunday against another rather impotent lineup, the Royals.

And guess who blanked the Mets 9-0 today, with no walks and only 92 pitches(!)...that'd be none other than the remarkable Johan Santana. For all the talk about the "down" year he's having - he does have just a 7-6 record - he still has a 2.91 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP. Yeah, he's still pretty good.

Forecasting Doom

One of the things I wrote about yesterday was that Justin Verlander's first pitch strike % has been really low - below or at 50% in his most recent outings. I thought this was interesting, so I went through some more numbers this morning: Over his last five starts, Verlander's FPS% has been 48.9%, a very bad number. (Remember, this includes his no-hitter.) For the sake of comparision, I calculated the numbers of two other young phenoms - Philly's Cole Hamels has a 56.6% over his last five starts, and SF's Matt Cain owns a 52.4%. So it seems Verlander has been having some control issues lately.

But I went farther back into his game log, and found some more interesting results. In Verlander's five starts before his five previous ones, he did much, much better - 60.3%. So what is the cause for this? The number one factor I would look at is fatigue. I don't know for a fact that 1st pitch strike % is directly related to fatigue, but it seems to make sense. Remember, Verlander threw over 200 IP last season - almost twice his previous season high - and pitched deep into October as the Tigers reached the World Series. As the season went into September and October, Verlander's numbers started to decline last year. This year? With the exception of his last two starts, Verlander's ERA has climbed consistantly throughout the season. He gave up just 2 HR in his first seven starts; he's given up five in his last six outings. His walk rate was pretty high for the first couple starts, and then dropped in the middle of the year, but it's climbing back up again; meanwhile, except for his 12 K outing two days ago, his strikeout rate has stayed pretty much the same.

So, my point is: The Tigers had better be careful with how they use Verlander. Here's what Baseball Prospectus 2007 said about Verlander:

...Postseason included, Verlander threw nearly 60 percent more innings in 2006 than in his pro degbut in 2005 and looked tired toward the end of the year, particularly in the playoffs. There are arguments for doing something creative with him this year, such as using him out of the bullpen for a month at the start of the season. At the very least, the Tigers need to err on the side of caution, because his arm is much too valuable to put in any long-term jeopardy.

So, why do I bring this up? The Tigers are not erring on the side of caution. Verlander has thrown 97+ pitches in all but one start, and he's been over 110 three times. And there's no reason to think this is going to stop. The Tigers have lost a lot of players from their bullpen and rotation, including Joel Zumaya, Kenny Rogers, Nate Robertson, and Zach Miner. Because of this, Jim Leyland is going to try to get a lot of innings out of his healthy starters, which could be very dangerous for Verlander this year and in the future.

Anyone remember Felix Hernandez's one-hitter against the Red Sox, back in April? After that game, everybody in the media jumped all over him, anointing him the next Johan Santana. Well, during his next start, he got injured and hasn't been nearly the same since coming back. Well, now the media's giving Justin Verlander more than enough love, and I'm seeing some parallels to the King Felix situation. I'm not saying he's going to get hurt on Sunday, but I will predict that he either goes on the DL or sees a dramatic rise in his ERA before the season is over.

Verlander's No-no

In case you have secluded yourself from all forms of media except this blog, Justin Verlander threw a no-hitter last night. Verlander rode the benefit of 12 strikeouts and a couple really good defensive plays behind him to record the second no-hitter of the season (the first coming from Mark Buerhle). This was a complete domination of the Brewers' lineup (who, by the way, recorded 22 hits the previous game) - Verlander struck out 12, and the ones who did make contact didn't get it very far; only three balls were hit to the outfield.

Much has been made of Verlander throwing 102 mph into the ninth inning; his velocity climbed as the game continued, going from an average of 96 in the first few innings to 98 around the sixth to 100 over the final inning. Now, the radar gun at Comerica is famous for not always being accurate - last year in the playoffs, Zumaya was repeatedly clocked at 103 when he was really throwing 100, and Verlander was consistantly hitting triple digits when all season long he'd been clocked at 97. But this one seems fairly legit - ESPN's Inside Edge (probably insider-only) had Verlander reaching 102 also, and I trust their numbers.

Verlander mixed in a fair amount of changeups and sliders as well, finishing the game with 112 pitches - actually a bit high, considering he faced only 30 hitters. One of the reasons why was that he only threw 50% first-pitch strikes, which is not a terrible number but is less than ideal. Looking through some of his game logs, this doesn't look like a new thing for him - by my count, in his previous three games his first pitch strike ratios have been 12/26 (46%) against Texas last week, 13/26 (50%) vs Cleveland a few weeks ago, and an especially atrocious 11/29 (38%) against Cleveland on May 31. I can't find FPS data anywhere except by going through game logs, but I know that, when I'm pitching, I usually shoot for a number in the mid-60's. I'd guess that the major league average is somewhere from 55-60%, and a star like Verlander should be in the sixties.

What does this mean? Well, it means Verlander throws too many pitches. His 3.88 pitches per plate appearance are 31st out of 145 pitchers with at least 40 IP this year (incidentally, the lowest number belongs to none other than Greg Maddux, with 3.15), and he's thrown 97 pitches or more in all but one start this year, topping 110 three times. Why does this matter? Verlander is only 24 years old. Last year, he threw over 200 innings (including the postseason); his previous high was 129. And he throws 102 mph. My point is, the Tigers should be careful about Verlander's workload; he could easily end up on the DL for at least a couple weeks before this season is over.

The good news is, he's striking out more hitters. He somehow posted a low K rate last year despite having almost the same stuff; this year, he's upped his rate almost a full K/9 IP. As Rob Neyer wrote last night in his blog: (insider-only, of course)

Verlander has been "pitching to contact" for a while now, and he's good enough to make that work. But tonight we saw what can happen when he pitches to non-contact. No, he might never throw another no-hitter (Roger Clemens hasn't thrown even one). If Verlander boosts his strikeout rate to eight or nine per nine innings, though, someday he'll add a Cy Young Award to the hardware he's already got.

Verlander's a great pitcher witH Cy Young-caliber stuff. And I like how he was throwing harder late in the game, proving that he has the stamina to go deep into the game and that he isn't throwing every pitch as hard as he can, saving some for when it matters. But the Tigers had better be careful with how they use him, at least until he gets into his prime years.