Game 156 – Consistent Pitching Lines

What’s new? For the 4th time in his 4th major league start Richmond pitches at least 5 innings but not more than 6 and gives up 3 runs. Check out these lines from his 4 starts:
5.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, Loss
5.2 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, No Decision
5.0 IP, 9 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, Loss
5.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, Loss

Even his walks and strikeouts have been very similar. The sad part is none of them were enough to get a win. Hopefully he gets one more shot in BAL to get that elusive 1st career win. I didn’t think Richmond would get through 5 given he hadn’t started or even pitched since the end of Aug when he was still in AAA. The Jays managed to get 83 pitches out of him. The big damage against him was a 2-run HR by Ortiz that Ortiz basically reached out and hit a ball down the LF line that just cleared the wall. The ball really fooled me, I thought it was just a lazy fly ball but Snider just kept drifting back until he ran out of room.

The Jays offence was unable to take advantage of Daisuke’s early wildness. He threw at least 2 balls to 7 of the first 8 hitters he faced. As a result he threw 45 pitches in the first 2 innings. Over the next 5 innings he threw just 64 more pitches. When you have a guy struggling w/his control you cannot be chasing pitches especially when already ahead in the count. Yet there was Rolen swinging at a 2-0 pitch well out of the strike zone down and away in the 2nd inning. Maybe the fact that there was a runner at 3rd w/less than 2 outs may have made Rolen a little too aggressive, trying too hard to drive in that run.

If you thought Richmond’s starts were similar compare this start by Matsuzaka and his first start against the Jays this season (it came at the end of Apr at Fenway). In both starts he went 7 innings, gave up 2 hits, 0 runs, and walked 2. Only the strikeouts differed, as he struck out 6 today and 4 in the Apr start. Taking it a step further he threw 69 strikes in both starts and the balls were off by a whopping 2 (40 this start, 42 in Apr).

Watching Daisuke pitch from the full windup w/Wells on 3rd in the 2nd I couldn’t help but think you could steal home. The only danger is Matsuzaka being a RH pitcher might see the runner breaking and be able to pitch the ball out (assuming a LH batter is up since pitching out to a RH hitter would only take the catcher further away) making it easier for the catcher to get out from his crouch and apply the tag.

Here are the stats:
Adv: Lind (5)
P-Adv: Matsuzaka
NAdv: Ortiz, Scutaro (7)
P-NAdv: Matsuzaka, Wolfe (2)
WG: Rolen (13)