Much has been written about Justin Verlander’s struggles this season. He’s undoubtedly hurt – if not outright killed – fantasy title hopes for a ton of people. Glass half full, though. Over his last two starts, he’s looked a little more like the Verlander we all know and love. In those 13 innings – a measly sample, but we’re being positive! – he’s struck out sixteen batters while walking two.

The small sample size caveat applies, a ton, but perhaps Verlander is closer to being back. He thinks he is:

After giving up seven runs to Kansas City on June 16, Verlander sat down with manager Brad Ausmus and pitching coach Jeff Jones to pour over film, new and old. They saw that the right-hander was moving laterally in a way that needed to be changed. They wanted him to move more toward home plate. Verlander said it was the biggest midseason change he’s undergone.

Ausmus said pitcher’s often make changes of this nature during the offseason. Verlander is no common pitcher, however.

“I felt like this was something we have to do to get him back to where he was,” Ausmus said. “As pitchers get older and more mature, they have to make adjustments because, physically, they’re going to change.”
So between starts, Verlander has been throwing 25-30 pitches in an extra bullpen session. The more he does it in practice, the less he has to think about doing it during a game.

“It’s probably more strenuous than I would like it to be,” Verlander said. “I’m the kind of person that wants to get out there and repeat it, repeat it, repeat it until the muscle memory kicks in.”

We’ll see if his good work continues tonight versus a very potent Oakland lineup.

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Nothing Mike Leake does is overly exciting, excluding his 12 strikeout performance versus the Giants last week. Over his last 47 starts(a little over 300 innings), Leake has posted a 3.38 ERA. His FIP during that time is 3.90. Throughout his career, he’s beaten his peripherals, so we keep waiting for him to fall back a little. So far, he hasn’t. In fact, he’s even taken a few steps forward this year.

Leake’s striking out more hitter than he ever has, even if you remove his impeccable effort last week, his K% this season sits at 17.4%; a career high. His walk rate, which has always been good, is also at a career low. And he’s posting the best groundball rate. All of that, plus a little more, is leading to the best year of his career.

Perhaps Mike Leake is a little underwhelming. It’s not hard to overlook him considering how many flamethrowers populate the game today, but he’s still pretty darn good. He’s facing the Padres tonight, who, as Blake noted on Sunday, are perhaps the best team in the majors to bet on pitching against; they do have a team wide wOBA of .270, after all.

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For the most part, I’m a positive person. At least I try to be. That’s why I usually focus on guys who are performing well. It just feels better to highlight someone’s success. Today, though, let’s talk about how bad Eric Stults has been this season.

He was decent in 2012; pretty good in 2013; and he’s been atrocious, so far, in 2014. His strikeouts are down some, but his walks are basically where they were last season. He’s never missed bats, so when he’s pitching well, he’s getting by off of weak contact, especially considering he’s a flyball pitcher. Well, he hasn’t been able to outrun a .323 babip this season after being fortunate enough to squeak past a .302 number last season. He’s stranding the same amount of runners, so what gives? Dingers. Lots of them.

Stults has allowed 15 home runs so far. He allowed 18 total last season. And we can’t exactly blame luck, because the majority of them can be blamed solely on poor location. Nine of the fifteen home runs Stults has given up have came off of fastballs. Eight of those fastballs have been at least belt high. When your fastball averages 87 mph, you can’t really miss up in the zone, unless you’re Chris Young (maybe?).

After roughly 290 innings in San Diego with a HR/FB rate around 7%, Stults’ rate is currently 14.6%. Will it stay that high? Maybe not, but I still like the Diamondbacks tonight. Paul Goldschmidt, anyone?

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Full schedule, and then some, today. The Rays and Orioles have a day-night doubleheader, so both probables are list below, in case the order they pitch in changes. Let’s get into it.

Also, go USMNT. Always and forever.

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Finally, we have a little day baseball today. Four day games, to be exact. In one of those games, Marco Gonzales will be making his major league debut. In Coors Field, of all places. Luckily for Gonzazles, his best secondary offering is a change-up. That’s huge considering breaking balls don’t work quite as well in Colorado’s thin air.

Utilizing his change-up, fastball, and command, Gonzales has produced admirably while shooting through the Cardinals’ minor league system. He’ll make his major league debut after being drafted in the first round of last year’s draft. Gonzales was projected to move quickly, and he has; striking out 28.8% of the Double-A batters he’s faced in 38.2 innings at the level since being promoted.

I’m a fan of change-ups, therefore, I’m a fan of Gonzales. His fantasy impact seems a little iffy right now, though. For one, we’re not sure how long he’ll be up. Secondly, his first two starts will be in Colorado and then versus the Dodgers. Those two games aren’t easy tests. Then again, this game, especially at the major league level, isn’t supposed to be.

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Last season, Jeff Locke became, in some ways, a whipping boy for regression. He made the All-Star team thanks to a stellar 2.15 ERA and, undoubtedly, eight wins. Regression seemed to be on the horizon, and it was. His command was iffy at best, and he didn’t miss enough bats to make up for that. And then, the bottom fell out. Locke posted a 6.12 ERA over his last 12 starts. He was optioned to the minors and began his 2014 there, as well.

Jeff Locke is back, but he hasn’t looked much like the old one so far. He’s only thrown 26.1 innings in the majors thus far, so we’re dealing with an extremely small sample. Nonetheless, Locke has walked 2 batters. His 2% walk rate is nearly a 10% improvement over last year’s. In 2013, Locke threw a first pitch strike 58.5% of the time; he’s at 64% this year. His zone% last year was 41%; it’s 52.2% so far.

The most encouraging thing, though, about Locke’s early success is his swinging strike rate. Currently, his swSTR% is 12%, nearly a 4% increase over his 2012 and 2013 stints. He’s been able to generate those whiffs due to his change-up, which has a 31.3% swinging strike rate in 83 pitches. Locke’s change-up is, without question, his best weapon. He knows it, so he’s upped its usage over 9 points to 25.6%.

Locke isn’t an ace, but he looks improved. Much of this could be noise, but it’s hard to fake a 31.3% whiff rate on your change-up. Watch Locke closely going forward. If his command holds up, he could have a little something.

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And the weekend finally arrives. All of the weekend’s series started yesterday, but we were a little preoccupied with Clayton Kershaw to acknowledge that. The Braves and the Nationals are in a dead heat in the NL East, currently. The Orioles-Yankees series has some standings implications. As does the Indians-Tigers. Given the Royals’ recent run, that series is especially interesting.

We’re at a point in the season where things are fluid. Standings can change on a whim, but the series seem to start meaning a little more. The Red Sox are one of the teams that needs to begin making up ground. They’re 6.5 back as of Friday, after a loss to Oakland on Thursday, in the first game of a four game series. While Boston is trying to gain ground, Toronto will be facing off with divisional foe, Baltimore.

On the other coast, the Giants’ slide has helped the Dodgers make up ground, dropping the difference between the teams to 4 games, as of Friday afternoon. Best of all, for LA, they’re facing an anemic Padres squad this weekend. With good play and a little luck, the Dodgers deficit could be trimmed even further.

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Clayton Kershaw was fantastic Wednesday; he was perfect. He’s been the best pitcher in baseball, in my opinion. Since 2010, he’s third in WAR with 25.4, behind Felix Hernandez (26.5) and Justin Verlander (26.9). It’s long been discussed, however, that FIP based WAR might underrate Kershaw a little. If we use RA9-WAR, we get the same pitchers, in a different order. Kershaw reigns supreme at 29.7; Verlander and Hernandez follow accordingly with 25.6 and 25.5, respectively. Kershaw’s been great for quite some time, but he’s doing something he’s never came close to doing before, according to K-BB%.

Over the past 3 seasons, Kershaw has posted strikeout percentages of: 25.4, 25.6, and 34.4, while posting walk rates of: 7.0, 5.6, and 3.2. His strikeouts are through the roof, as his swinging strike rate, while his walk rate has plummeted even further. Kershaw, due to injury isn’t a “qualified” pitcher, at the moment. Nonetheless, what he’s doing is historic.

Since 1965, only Pedro Martinez has posted a better K-BB% as a starter, with at least 60 innings pitched. We’re in a different era, strikeouts are more prevalent than ever, but, still…come on. Kershaw’s doing something that’s nearly unheard of. He’s started 10 games. He’s struck out at least nine batters in seven on them. Regression might take over; it probably will, at least a little bit, but I’m not betting against Kershaw. Not this year. Maybe not ever.

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We do have leaderboards for this sort of thing, but the problem is that if you’re looking at horizontal movement, PITCHf/x data for lefties and righties is very different. For example, the average four-seam fastball for a lefty goes 91 mph, but breaks +5.5 inches. The average four-seam fastball for a righty goes 92.2 mph and breaks -4.2 inches. So if you sorted one way or the other for horizontal fastball movement, you would just be getting the best lefties and righties.

So I did the work for you. Voila, the straightest fastballs in the game. It may be the least important facet of a fastball, behind location and velocity, but it’s still a facet we don’t talk about much.

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It’s Chris Sale day. Jeff Sullivan had a post about him the other day. Spoiler: he’s fantastic. Here are some of the highlights from said piece:

For Sale, there are a few goals. One, he wants to keep himself healthy and able to pitch. Two, adding a better changeup should allow him to be effective longer within games. And three, Sale indicates that the changeup helps him keep his mechanics consistent. These things always sound good in theory, but Sale’s gone beyond theory, to the point where he’s genuinely executing. He’s dramatically cut down his slider usage. By our data, he’s increased his changeup usage by 12 percentage points, the biggest hike in baseball. According to Brooks, he’s actually second toHenderson Alvarez, but by the same source Alvarez used a changeup often in the past, so at least for Sale this is significant and new.

And Sale owns a career-high strikeout rate. He owns a career-low walk rate. Since he came off the disabled list, he’s posted a league-leading K% – BB% of 33%. Sale’s gotten better against both lefties and righties, and for an idea of the confidence he’s developed in his change.

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For another glimpse at how Sale has kind of phased the slider out, here are his rates of strikeouts for which the slider was responsible:

2012: 58% strikeouts on slider
2013: 52%
2014: 22%

Sale’s slider is still good. It’s still Chris Sale’s slider. This season it’s been knocked for all of three hits. But Sale hasn’t needed to rely on that pitch, as his changeup has been knocked for just 11 hits despite a large gain in frequency. The one Sale changeup hit for extra bases so far wasn’t even a bad changeup; it was a good changeup thrown to an amazing hitter. Otherwise, the changeup has gotten 20 strikeouts and ten singles. Righties have struck out against the changeup 17 times; they’ve struck out against the slider six times. Last season, those numbers were 34 and 79.

Mr. Sale will be going against the NL ERA leader, Tim Hudson, today; should be a dandy.

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