You know what will get us Orioles fans feeling even more down than we already are? The three young arms that the organization and fans have so much hope and expectations for start three consecutive games for the Orioles and give up a combined 19 runs in 9.2 innings.
Oh yes, that’ll get Orioles fans depressed. After all, Brian Matusz, Chris Tillman and Jake Arrieta just got beaten to shreds by the Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays, the former of which is second in the bigs in slugging percentage and the latter is first in the AL Wild Card Race. The Orioles’ young starters getting the crap kicked out of them repeatedly by AL East foes is exactly what no one with ties to the Orioles wants to see.
We want to see the young pitchers — these three, especially — hold their own, which I listed as the No. 1 priority for the second half of the season. Instead, we saw Matusz’s line on Sunday against the Blue Jays reading as such: 1.2 IP, 5 H, 6 R/ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 1 HR. Tillman didn’t fare any better, with his line on Monday against the Rays reading: 2.2 IP, 7 H, 8 R/ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 0 HR (hey! No homers! Well there’s…something). Arrieta’s line on Tuesday: 5.1 IP, 4 H, 5 R/ER, 4 BB, 1 K, 2 HR.
Arrieta managing to last into the sixth inning makes him look like Roy Halladay type of an innings eater (maybe not Halladay, but at least Joe Blanton).
So fans are and panicking and will panic about these kinds of performances now and when they happen later in the season. Perhaps these fans don’t know that young pitching can possibly be inconsistent? Shocking, I know.
Don’t panic about these three young pitchers. They’re learning on the job in the most unforgiving environment in baseball. When these pitchers take the mound, there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll be staring down a lineup that is one of best in baseball. The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees are first and second, respectively, in team wOBA in the majors. The Rays are seventh in wOBA. The Blue Jays are 11th in wOBA, but they can mash the ball over the fence with the best of them. These aren’t exactly National League West lineups.
In Matusz’s case, he’s a pitcher who’s only going to be challenged by big league hitters — he was probably big league ready as soon as he walked off of the University of San Diego campus. There was nothing he was going to learn in the minor leagues last season. He could probably mow through a minor league lineup last year by throwing just a few fastballs per game – that’s how advanced his off-speed stuff and feel for pitching is. Sending Matusz down to the minor leagues now because of two poor outings would be as big of an exercise in futility that a baseball team could commit.
Here is an excellent breakdown of why sending Matusz down to the minors should not even be a consideration at this point. Pretty entertaining breakdown, too.
Matusz has pretty much held his own in his rookie season with a 4.43 FIP and 4.74 xFIP. While he has a high 5.21 ERA, his FIP indicates that Matusz has pitched almost a full run better than his ERA would indicate, and his .327 BABIP indicates that he’s gotten fairly unlucky on balls in play this season. Matusz’s high BABIP and his high differential between his FIP and ERA couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the Orioles’ wretched defense, would it? No…
Anyway, Matusz tends to struggle when he fails to locate his fastball down in the zone when early in the count, and thus has to work from behind with his fastball. Matusz doesn’t have the kind of velocity on his fastball which allows him to blow it by hitters when hitters are sitting on it.
On Sunday, Matusz also struggled with the command of his other three pitches, which isn’t unusual of Matusz when he normally struggles. He was all out of sorts. Matusz has made 27 starts in his career, and I’ve probably seen at least 20 of them, either on television or in person. Matusz didn’t look like the same pitcher mechanically on Sunday that I’ve seen in the past. Matusz says he was flying open, whatever the hell that means. I just know that it didn’t look quite right.
We’ve seen Matusz pitch beautifully before. We’ve seen flashes of brilliance and we know that he has the kind of repertoire that can play at the big league level. That his last two outings total 4.2 innings and 10 runs allowed doesn’t change that. But what we also know is that Matusz needs to have pretty precise fastball command if he’s going to sit from 88-90 MPH, and he needs his mechanics just right in order to do that.
Jim Palmer made an interesting point on the telecast of Matusz’s latest start in which he made the point that Matusz was billed by the Baseball America-types to be a pitcher who would sit in the low-90′s and touch 95 MPH, but, as Palmer said, that’s not really the case. Matusz sits from 88-90 MPH and can touch the low-90′s. Matusz just can’t get away with any balls in the middle of the plate with that kind of velocity.
Tillman’s also a pitcher that’s not going to benefit from more time in the minors. He’s clearly overmatched Triple-A hitters this year in the form of a no-hitter and a one-hitter, which is why I’m shocked that the Orioles sent down Tillman again to make room for Kevin Millwood. What in the world is Tillman going to gain by one-hitting some poor Triple-A lineup again?
Tillman would benefit from some continuity — shuttling him from Baltimore to Norfolk and back again cannot be beneficial for the young pitcher. Pitching him every five days at the big league level in this point in his development is what would be beneficial. But it was a roster crunch with Millwood coming back, and Tillman has options and had just given up eight runs, so Tillman was sent down. I really wish, though, the Orioles could have found a way to keep Tillman pitching every five days at the big league level — perhaps send Brad Bergesen to the bullpen given how the bullpen’s been taxed recently?
Tillman needs to further develop the feel and command for his cut fastball, which he needs to start using a lot more. He can’t get away with his 88-91 MPH straight-as-a-string four-seam fastball in the middle of the plate. But if he develops command for his cut fastball on the edge of the strike zone, he should be able to consistently get hitters out. During his very effective outing in Texas last week (7.1 innings of one-run ball), Tillman used his cutter and it was working. Tillman also has a good curveball which he struggles to command, and also a good changeup that he doesn’t use much (only 8.3% of his pitches this year have been the changeup).
Arrieta’s another pitcher who’s mastered the minors. Arrieta pitched to a 1.85 ERA in 73.0 innings at Norfolk before getting called up this season. Arrieta has four solid pitches — a fastball, slider, curveball and changeup. Coming into his start on Tuesday night’s start, Arrieta had used his fastball 64.7% of the time this season; his slider, 15.5%; curveball, 11.5%; changeup, 8.3%.
I like Arrieta a lot. Although he struggles with his command from time to time, he wants to come right after hitters with his best stuff and oozes of confidence on the mound. After seeing so many young pitchers pass through Camden Yards, that’s such a welcome sight. The I’m-too-afraid-to-throw-the-ball-in-the-zone tactic gets ridiculously old. I like a pitcher with guts. What’s one of the things that makes a pitcher like Halladay so good? He’s out there to hit batters right in the mouth. No fear.
(With both Arrieta and Tillman, I really don’t feel like I have enough starts to look at in order to fairly examine their FIP and xFIP and such. We’ll do that later in the season).
Look, there’s no guarantee that these pitchers are going to be great, or even above-average pitchers. But please, let them learn at the big league level without critiquing their every move. Lower expectations. Let them pitch every fifth day. Let them learn.
Some other tidbits…
-Mike Gonzalez’s returns to the roster for Wednesday afternoon’s game. I have a new promotion that should be planned for Wednesday — every fan that comes to the game gets to guess which Warehouse window is getting shattered via a Gonzalez offering. I’ll say Carlos Pena zooms one over Boog’s Barbecue and shatters a second-floor window.
-A moment of silence for Carl Crawford.
-Luke Scott hit two homers on Tuesday, one day after his return from the disabled list. As I’ve written before, Scott is the real wild card for the Orioles in regards to possible trades. He’s a productive hitter (.361 career wOBA, .373 wOBA coming into Tuesday’s game) and would get the most in return among the Orioles’ veteran trade chips. For teams in the hunt, they would love to add a .373 wOBA into the middle of their order, especially given Scott’s odd consistency over the past two and half months. He’s actually not a bad left fielder, either (7.7 career UZR in left). And if he does get on a tear at the plate for 7-10 days, good God, he can single-handedly carry a team for those days. Can you imagine the Detroit Tigers’ lineup if Scott was the five-hole hitter and got hot during a playoff push? Combine that with Miguel Cabrera? But if he goes cold, Jim Leyland will not be a happy camper.
-Still, I think the chances of Scott leaving are very slim. The Orioles are lucky to have a productive hitter like him under team control and will need his bat in the middle of the lineup in the future given the lack of impact bats coming through the minor leagues.
-The game in which Brian Roberts returns to the top of the lineup will be the most excited I’ve been for a game this year since the home opener. Roberts means so much to this team and if he can prove that he’s the same player that he’s been in years past, that’s a massive boost for 2011.
-And finally, here’s hoping for a couple productive Millwood starts and a trade!
All statistics are as of Monday’s results via FanGraphs.
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I think it’s strange they keep tossing Tillman around, especially after the gem he threw in Texas. I agree with you, they need to keep these guys in place, and continue to let them pitch and learn – the organization demonstrating confidence in their abilities. Couldn’t they roster crunch someone else?