The most encouraging feature of the above statistical line is the high strikeout total. According to Porcello's game logs on Baseball-Reference.com, he has struck out six plus batters in his last three games. This is hardly an impressive feat on a staff which features strikeout artists such as Anibal Sanchez, Max Scherzer and Verlander. However, it is the first such three-game string of Porcello's career.
I wanted to see which pitches the strikeouts came on, so I checked the Game Day results of his last three games at MLB.COM. THey were as follows:
May 2 versus Houston
Change-up swinging
Change-up swinging
four-seam fastball called
Change-up called
Curveball called
Change-up swinging
Four-seam fastball swinging
May 12 versus Cleveland
Change-up swinging
Sinker called
Sinker called
Sinker swinging
Change-up called
Four-seam fastball called
May 17 versus Texas
Four-seam swinging
Change-up swinging
Change-up swinging
Change-up swinging
Curveball swinging
Curveball called
If you count them up, you'll see the following totals:
Change-ups 9
Four-seam fastballs 4
Sinkers 3
Curves 3
So, he is making good use his change-up which is something that Jeff Roberts of Eye on the Tigers noted earlier this week. Roberts used FanGraphs data to show that it has been Porcello's most improved pitch this year in terms of linear weights results.
Porcello has had good stretches before where he prevented runs with good control and lots of ground balls, but his inability to miss bats (only five strikeouts per nine innings for his career) has always come back to haunt him. His annual strikeouts by pitch according to Brooks Baseball.net (plus last night's game) are shown in the table below. (You may notice that the strikeout totals in the bottom row are not quite right in some cases, but I trust that the Brooks Baseball pitch type data are the most accurate available.
Table 1: Rick Porcello's Strikeouts by Pitch Type
Pitch type
|
2009
|
2010
|
2011
|
2012
|
2013
|
Four-seam fastball
|
25
|
22
|
24
|
17
|
3
|
Sinker
|
33
|
30
|
36
|
55
|
7
|
Slider
|
11
|
23
|
37
|
17
|
4
|
Curveball
|
7
|
1
|
5
|
4
|
4
|
Change-up
|
12
|
10
|
14
|
14
|
13
|
Totals
|
88
|
86
|
118
|
107
|
27
|
Data source: Brooks Baseball.net
The most striking number on the table is the 13 strikeouts on change-ups already in 2013, nine of which came in the last three games. This is remarkable because Porcello has never struck out more than 14 on his change in any season. Some of that is due to increased usage of the pitch which is a good thing if it's working. Time will tell whether he can maintain the effectiveness of his change throughout a full season, but it's encouraging and something to watch in his upcoming starts.
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