Danny Moloshok / AP
Where has THAT been? Seven innings in less than 100 pitches (60% of which were strikes) with only eight base runners allowed and zero runs. Zero.
This is the Aaron Cook that the Rockies were hoping they would get back in February. I don’t believe anyone within the Rockies organization thought they might get a pitcher that good on a nightly basis but that Cook would at least pitch a few games like this during the year mixed in with games in which he allows a few runs (OK, maybe five or six runs occasionally). The only people who thought Cook would pitch like that all year are the guys and gals at Root Sports who obviously are not allowed to say anything negative about anyone within the Rockies organization. They think Ty Wigginton is the most versatile defensive player in baseball and would love to have seven clones of him in the field behind the pitcher every night.
What was it that Cook did so well last night? It is pretty simple; he kept the ball down and in against both left hand and right hand batters.
Here are the pitchFX charts from Cook’s outing last night (thanks to Fangraphs!). Notice how very few pitches were up in the zone and how there were very few pitches over the outside part of the plate where a batter can extend his arms and generate power. Most of his pitches were either in the bottom half of the zone or out of the zone and low, exactly where he needs to live to generate the ground balls he requires to be successful. He isn’t a strikeout pitcher and for him to be successful he must keep the ball on the ground.
Cook v Dodgers LHB
Cook v Dodgers RHB
To compare to Cook’s most recent outing, which wasn’t all that bad and certainly not his worst of 2011, look at the pitch location. Especially against right hand batters Cook struggled to keep the ball down and in. Against lefties the ball was all over the place, in and out especially.
Cook v Dbacks LHB
Cook v Dbacks RHB
Finally, in looking at Cook’s season as a whole we can use the Heat Maps feature on Fangraphs to see how he is locating his two-seam fastball – the pitch he must control and locate low in the zone to effectively generate those ground ball outs. As you can see he uses his two-seamer more often against lefties and he leaves it right in the middle of the plate entirely too often. Against right hand batter the majority of his two-seamer’s end up low and inside; an ideal location to get those weak ground outs to third or short.
Heat Map LHB
Heat Map RHB
While I normally wouldn’t get excited or even write about a single game performance this one came out of nowhere. Before the game started last night I asked the Twitter world (follow me!!) which would be higher: runs allowed by Cook or innings pitched by Cook. Never did I think (or those who responded) that he would last more than four or five innings much less pitch seven innings of shutout baseball.
PS – I don’t care if the Dodgers had Aaron Miles and his career .355 slugging percentage batting fifth or that Jamey Carroll and his career OPS+ of 87 was also in that same lineup or that Tony Gwynn Jr. and his career .321 on-base percentage was batting leadoff; shutting out ANY team for Cook right now is impressive.
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8 comments
1 ping
Dan Garfield
July 28, 2011 at 10:49 AM (UTC -6)
Good grief. It’s one game against the juggernaut Dodgers. Impressive is way too strong a description.
Travis Lay
July 28, 2011 at 5:30 PM (UTC -6)
I should have said “semi-decent”?? It was impressive. I was impressed. I am betting all the players behind Cook were impressed. It was impressive.
Forsythe P Jones
July 28, 2011 at 2:59 PM (UTC -6)
As to your criticism of Root Sports, if you, sir, are even implying a criticism of Alanna Rizzo, I shall have to ask you to step outside.
Travis Lay
July 28, 2011 at 5:31 PM (UTC -6)
lol – I need some sort of platform where I can write small blog posts – longer than 140 characters (or 160, whatever Twitter allows) because when she was slurping Jamey Carroll I almost lost it.
Logan Burdine
July 29, 2011 at 7:53 AM (UTC -6)
I find her to be close to intolerable. Maybe if the season were going better, I’d have more patience for Root Sports, but, as is, I’ve been watching a lot of games on mute lately. Unfortunately, I can’t mute Toyota Talk.
John
July 28, 2011 at 9:44 PM (UTC -6)
I agree I was shocked…I was eating dinner in a bar and each inning that went by and it still read LA: 0 led me closer and closer to an aneurysm. Impressive is the word, if only because expectations were so low.
Simone
July 29, 2011 at 7:17 AM (UTC -6)
I think we would have been impressed even if Cook had allowed only 4 runs in 5 innings. When your expectations are this low…well…almost anything impresses you.
Also, if the Rockies want to draw people to Coors Field there are 2 things they can do:
1. Win games!
2. Auction off Alanna Rizzo for an evening (I’d fly all the way from NYC to get in on that!).
CodenameDuchess
July 29, 2011 at 12:29 PM (UTC -6)
Twitter thoughts on Rockies pitchers, former and current |
July 29, 2011 at 10:03 AM (UTC -6)
[...] ← Was that Aaron Cook on the mound last night? [...]