Dean Kremer’s Big Inning

On Tuesday night the first round of the “Beltway Series” kicked off in D.C. and O’s fans showed out. It was a fun night all around. “Fired Up Guy” battled beltway traffic and came down to D.C. to give his support:

Heck, Yennier Cano even road the bullpen cart:

But the real fun was watching Dean Kremer work. Let me take you into a tense moment. It begins with no outs in the bottom of the third inning. CJ Abrams knocked a leadoff single into center field and waited patiently on first base. Next, Victor Robles reached, not first, but second on what was ruled an error by Gunnar Henderson. Take a look:

With runners now on second and third, Kremer had to have been shaken. Instead of two outs, he’s got two super fast guys on base just waiting for a chance to head home. In fact, it was the best chance the Nats would have all game:

So, what did he do next? Unleased. You know when you JUST-GET-SO-MAD you could throw a fastball right down the pipe at 97 MPH!?! Kremer does and he started with Lane Thomas, throwing four consecutive fastballs, ending with this outside edge two-seamer:

That put-away sinker to Thomas came in at 93.4 MPH, better than his season average 91.5 MPH for the pitch. But the next pitch to Dominique Smith was even more juiced at 96.9 MPH, over 3 MPH faster. Smith swung and missed. Next, Kremer reared back again, this time throwing a four-seamer at 97.1 MPH, better than his season average 95 MPH. Smith swung and missed. Next? Another four-seam heater, this time at 97.4 MPH. Smith…

…swung and missed. Now, totally pumped and on a high-octane level, Kremer had to face arguably the Nats’ best hitter, Joey Meneses. Kremer didn’t back off, he again threw fastballs, sinkers, cutters, and four-seamers in the zone faster than he typically throws them, even reaching 97.3 MPH on one four-seamer. After six straight fastballs, Kremer retired Meneses swinging on, yes, a fastball.

Each of those three strikeouts came on fastballs, two on four-seamers, and one on a sinker. In fact, the last two pitches to Robles plus the rest of the pitches thrown in the third inning thereafter were fastballs of some kind, 16 consecutive fastballs. After the error, Kremer found a little something extra and steadily increased his velocity as he worked through the jam:

If you look at Dean Kremer’s savant pageyou may notice that his the velocity on his sinker is down ever so slightly from last season. However, if you look at game-by-game velocity, last night’s sinkers were coming in at career-high levels:

The title of this article suggests it is only about one inning, but this whole game was a gem from Kremer. He posted his second-best career game score, appeared for 6.2 shut-out innings, threw a first-pitch strike 88% of the time, and stayed out of the heart of the zone…

…and he rarely fell behind in the count:

In this young season, Kremer’s stuff has played up and while his slider is possibly being miss-classified, it’s his best pitch this season. Kremer showed how he can be effective with fastballs and a little more velocity, but he still has a breaking ball waiting. A 113 Stf+ SL ranks 30th among starters with at least 10 innings pitched:

Now, before you go running to the waiver wire after reading a fantasy baseball analyst’s overexcited rundown of a good game, note that Kremer has a current (post Nats game) ERA of 6.16. His HR/FB rate is pushing 20% and he’s only recording 6.63 K/9. In four games so far this season, he’s given up five home runs. Pumping fastballs into the zone doesn’t work all the time. Just check out what Stone Garret did after paying a little attention to Kremer’s strategy:

So sure, he’s a fantasy niche pick-up. Kremer has been living the life of a 93.4 average fastball pitcher and they tend to strike out a little less than the 96-97 average fastball guys:

But, on Tuesday night in our Nation’s Captial, Kremer found 97. I can’t help but notice Kremer is only 27 years old, is part of an O’s rotation that is desperate for someone to stay there, and he’s got a good head of hair. If you play in a league where the reliever who follows your starter takes the bullpen cart to the mound and you get 20 bonus points, you should pick him up now! Or, if you are in a league where you are in need of pitching and want to take a chance on a guy after a hot start where increased velocity and control were the main contributing factors, picking him up now and keeping a close eye on him could be advantageous.