Indians 1, Twins 0
by Jesse
on Jun 11, 2008 9:32 AM EDT
in Game Recaps
What's better than going seven innings and only allowing one run?
Not much. But C.C. Sabathia had an answer. Sabathia crushed a floundering Minnesota offense on Tuesday night, throwing a complete game shutout. It was his second of the year, and his seventh quality start in his last ten.
Scott Baker was more than solid, allowing eight hits and a walk through seven. While he didn't have his usual command he was able to keep himself out of big innings with some help from his defense--including a great snag in his own right, on a hard-hit comebacker (a word which only makes sense in baseball) which likely saved a run. In spite of striking out a season-low one batter and having a tight strike zone, it was his fourth quality start of the season.
Comparing Baker to Sabathia is a bit like comparing Coke to Pepsi (or Tab to Cola Drink if you like): similar in function but there's difference in flavor.
Scott Baker
C.C. Sabathia
Due to the arm motion and location of release, Sabathia's getting even more movement on his breaking balls than it looks. His slider can be vicious, and it swoops across the plate. While the strain on Baker's shoulder isn't as likely to cause damage to his arm, the torque that Sabathia gets goes a long way in making that breaking ball as effective as it is:
Scott Baker
C.C. Sabathia
Check out the spin differential on the breaking balls. While Sabathia's fastball/changeup combo has the same amount of spin as a low-end Baker slider, C.C.'s breaking balls are usually coming in pretty far over the top of Baker's fastballs. While it's just a difference in pitching style, it effectively shows where that killer Sabathia slider gets its break.
Where Scott Baker's curveball (and even slider) are a tight and graceful, Sabthia's slider breaks knees...with physics as its evil sidekick.
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I don't get those graphs
but probably not worth your time to explain what I’m looking at.
What I found interesting is the symmetry of the last two losses for the Twins.
Ninth inning in Chicago on Monday: Gomez gets a hit, Casilla singles him ahead a base. Two speedsters on and nobody out, with Mauer, Morneau and Cuddyer coming up.
Seemed like we were in business.
Mauer hits into a double-play and Morneau grounds out. Game over.
Tuesday night: First inning. (Remember that because the ninth was the last inning of Monday’s game, this is the very next inning the Twins played.) Gomez gets a single. Casilla bunts for a hit. Two on, nobody out, Mauer, Morneau and Cuddyer coming up.
Mauer lines out to left, and so does Morneau and Gomez is doubled off second.
Two games, two ideal scenarios to start innings, both feed into our star hitters, but both end fruitlessly. Monday was the ninth and meant losing by two runs to Chicago. Tuesday was the first and represented the only real chance to mount a rally against Sabathia.
Kind of funny. Did the Twins deflate after watching deja-vu all over again?
by Old Twins Cap on Jun 11, 2008 12:32 PM EDT 0 recs
Essentially
for the first two graphs, it’s measuring horizontal movement on pitches. Think of “0” on the horizontal break axis as being home plate, the negative numbers floating further into right-handed hitters and positive numbers moving furthing into left-handed hitters. That’s not the full explaination, but it’s cursory enough.
The second pair of charts just measures speed of the pitch versus spin. So Baker’s fastballs had a rotation of around 220, curveballs 60, sliders 120. By comparison, Sabathia’s rotations went the other way. Fastballs around 150, but the slider anywhere from 220-330.
by Jesse on
Jun 11, 2008 5:35 PM EDT
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