Heading into Friday night’s opening game, I was eagerly anticipating getting my first look at the Rockies’ opening day starter and de facto ace, Jeremy Gutrhie. If you were to only look at Guthrie’s stat line from the game (7 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 1 SO), you would probably assume that he pitched solidly, doing exactly what Rockies fans hoped he would do: pitch aggressively, eat innings, and overcome his propensity to give up the long ball.
I’m afraid that Guthrie’s performance was much more disconcerting than the box score might suggest, though, and he should consider himself lucky to have only surrendered four hits and three earned runs.
Guthrie’s primary shortcoming in Friday’s game was his fastball command. Of his 103 pitches, 33 were fastballs, and of those 33, only 18 were thrown for strikes. Below is the PitchFX data from Guthrie’s start, illustrating rather starkly his struggles to locate the fastball.
As you can see, not only was Guthrie consistently missing the mark with his fastball, he was missing pretty badly. He had much better luck with his cutter (22 pitches, 19 for strikes), but as the graph above shows, many of those strikes were up in the strike zone.
Even more concerning may be the fact that Guthrie didn’t induce a whole lot of swinging strikes. Through the seven innings that Guthrie was on the mound, Astros hitters only took six swings and misses. His change up and slider each induced two swings and misses, his cutter and curveball were each hacked at and missed one time, and not one Astros hitter swung and missed at his fastball. Clearly, you’d like to see a guy whose fastball sits between 92 and 94 mph get at least a few swings and misses with that pitch. These numbers would be far less alarming if Guthrie were the kind of pitcher who lived off of inducing contact and getting groundball outs, but we already know that he is a fly ball pitcher whose line drive percentage spiked last year. Instead, these numbers paint a picture of a guy who not only had trouble locating his fastball, but also didn’t have enough movement and depth on his secondary pitches to fool hitters consistently.
So, how did Guthrie escape with only four hits and three earned runs allowed? Basically, the Astros bailed him out, because the Astros are terrible at baseball. Throughout the entire game the Astros were overly aggressive in their approach at the plate, and continually hit themselves into outs rather than forcing Guthrie to find the strike zone. In the second, fifth, and sixth innings Guthrie threw less than 55% of his pitches for strikes, and yet the Astros only managed to put three men on base in those three innings combined. Outside of the monstrous solo home runs from Lee and Despite the fact that Guthrie gave the Rockies a quality start on opening night and helped secure the team a victory, Rockies’ fans should not assume that Guthrie’s apparent success is a sign of things to come. If Guthrie is going to succeed at Coors Field against teams that are more than just a collection of glorified AAA players, he’s going to need to rein in his fastball command and find a way to miss some bats. If he doesn’t, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for him to escape the damage of the home runs that he will inevitably surrender. Solo shots will transform into two and three run homers, and his pitch count will suffer against the discerning eyes of a true major league hitters.
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7 comments
TroyF
April 8, 2012 at 8:05 AM (UTC -6)
Both Guthrie and Moyer have looked poor. At least with Guthrie, I think we can all figure out what he is going to be right now. His career numbers tell the tale. He’ll give you 100 pitches every game for 30+ starts. Half the time, he’ll give you a quality start. 25% of the time he’s going to throw up a line like 6 or 7 IP with 4-5 runs. The rest of the time it is Katy bar the door.
Moyer has to be so perfect even to be mediocre, I just don’t get it. Throw the healthy Oakland guy into the rotation. I’m not saying they’ll pitch better, but at least there is a CHANCE they might improve. Such an asinine decision.
The real key guys are the guys throwing today and tomorrow, and then Pomeranz in a couple of weeks.
These are the three who will make or break the Rockies pitching staff. If two are above average and one is average, the rotation won’t be a total train wreck. If two suck beyond words and one is average, the Rockies will be eliminated by the end of June.
Travis Lay
April 8, 2012 at 8:50 PM (UTC -6)
I agree, Troy. I submitted a comment to ESPN tonight for tomorrow’s power rankings focusing on Moyer. It’s like he is getting a free pass because he is old. It’s like his age allows him to suck a bit more and Tracy will look the other way. I think you sum it up perfectly in that he has to pitch perfect just to be mediocre.
Tanja
May 19, 2012 at 11:00 PM (UTC -6)
I have nothing agansit Joel Klatt but listening to him on the radio, I always got the impression that talking baseball was like being at the dentist; something he had to do but didn’t like. I must confess that most of my listening came when he was paired with CJ so maybe that had something to do with his lack of passion. Or perhaps lack of passion is something Root Sports wanted. Either way, both the dismissal of Helmer and the hiring of Klatt come across to me as a huge insult to Rockies Fans. Especially given Klatts overt allegiance to the Boston Red Sox. Here’s a guy that was born and grown in Colorado. He was only 11 years old when the Rockies came to town yet he takes to the airwaves to declare his Red Sox fandom. I know most broadcasters have roots in other teams and I kinda realize I am being irrational. But this really bugs me.VA:F [1.9.16_1159](from 0 votes)
Michael
April 8, 2012 at 9:49 PM (UTC -6)
Speaking of the inscrutable decisions of Tracy. Why did he bench Fowler already? He’s 1 for 7. Its two f—in games I thought we were going to let the young guys work things out this year? He has a better average than Helton and better OBP than Scutaro and Cargo but they don’t get sit down nor should they, ITS 2 DAMN GAMES will someone explain sample size to our front office. After barely not getting swept by the AAAA team that is the Astros and some of the decisions already being made by Tracy it could be a bad year (but I will not panic yet because I have a slight understanding of sample size)
TroyF
April 8, 2012 at 10:41 PM (UTC -6)
I sort of get it. He wanted to play the bench to get them all in a game early. The announcers were saying he doesn’t feel that he has a “normal” bench and that they would be starters on other teams. I’m really scratching my head at all of that. Lets look. . . Colvin, Giambi, Rosario, Herrera, Pachcho, Really? Who is a 100% lock to start on any other team Jim? Herrera is a utility IF. Giambi a part time DH or pinch hitter. Colvin is ok, but is certainly no all star. Where is Pacheco going to play elsewhere. With the defense he showed today, it certainly isn’t going to be third base. I really like Rosario, but the kid is young.
It is a small sample size. You have to hand it to the Astros starters. All were dealing this weekend. A lot of first pitch strikes in very difficult areas to hit. I don’t think that will hold as the season moves on, but they pitched well this weekend. Nicasio was encouraging today. He threw the ball well.
I agree with you Travis. Moyer seems to get a pass from everyone because of his age. Guess what people? He throws like he’s 49. There is no way he is getting through games at Coor’s without giving up bombs. Knowing how to pitch is nice. . . but he throws a 77 mile an hour heater. How in the hell does anyone think this is going to work?
I know it’s 162 games and all, but the next nine games are huge. Giants, DBacks and Padres. All at home. You want to even give us a sweat this year, you have to go above .500 this homestand.
Simone
April 8, 2012 at 10:54 PM (UTC -6)
…and the ferris wheel keeps turning.
The Rockies need a TEAM that plays together EVERYDAY. We already lost Ian Stewart (who drove home the winning run today for the Cubs) at third because Tracy wasn’t willing to play him in favor of Wiggy and the result at 3rd base is how many errors at that position in 2 games? That’s what I thought.
I feel that things will be better once DLR is back in the lineup and we can get rid of Moyer.
That will leave us with:
1. DLR
2. Chacin
3. Nicasio
4. Guthrie
5. Pomeranz
If Nicasio pitches all year like he did tonight, DLR is the same he was before the injury, and Chacin & Pomeranz are at least mediocre….we’ve good a pretty solid rotation.
As far as hitting and fielding….LET THE STARTERS START! Don’t bench everyone to give others “playing time”. This isn’t the little leagues.
Mike
April 10, 2012 at 7:35 AM (UTC -6)
When I first heard about the Guthrie acquisition, I thought “Wow, a bona-fide #3 starter to go among the 4′s and 5′s the Rox throw out there”. Then, being somewhat a modern fan, I checked into some of his stats and found out that he is an extreme flyball pitcher who does not really strike anybody out, and I figured that it was a typical O’Dowd acquisition, i.e., a terrible fit for Coors Field, and I figured the Rox would compete to win maybe 70 games. Sigh. I guess I am agreeing with everything above.