Matusz Tonight

[Great 2BA FL Gator]

Eh. Not so worried about the stats. He gets through 6IP and gives up 3ER, then he's quasi-done his job. Even if ugly. And even if not great news.

I think this is the right idea, even if the latter half failed to be right, lol. I get frustrated because Brian has pretty mediocre stats. I want him to look like a better pitcher, but truth is, he just doesn't have it right now, at least not consistently.

The stats will be fine if he ever gets right. He's just not right right now and the stats show it.

[isestrex]

If he goes 5in and 3 runs that's a win for us.

Well... he did go 5 innings and 3 runs.

Sadly he gave up more in the 6th.

[Can_of_corn]

Well... he did go 5 innings and 3 runs.

Sadly he gave up more in the 6th.

I blame buck for sending him back out there. He has a rested pen and Hunter was already up.

While I would certainly like to get more then 5IP from the starters Matusz was obviously living on borrowed time tonight.

[Malike]

I blame buck for sending him back out there. He has a rested pen and Hunter was already up.

While I would certainly like to get more then 5IP from the starters Matusz was obviously living on borrowed time tonight.

I see what you're saying. 70 something pitches thrown, and the 7-9 hitters coming to the plate, I can see why he tried to squeeze another inning out of him. Matusz is pretty horrible, though.

[fansince71]

135 guys on base in 80 innings is crap!

DD make another Guthrie trade!

[Moose Milligan]

The change up is going to make or break Matusz along with this overthrowing FB thing. If he can't get those things straight, I think he is doomed. I'm starting to get worried about the change up. It just doesn't look like a ML pitch to me right now and, when the location is poor, it is a super easy pitch to hit.

This is why I think he'll be doomed. Seems like every critique I read of Matusz talks about his lack of command/location. Poor fastball location...poor fastball command....poor location on the change-up....etc, etc.

If you have filthy stuff, you might be able to get away with poor command. Matusz, unfortunately, doesn't have filthy stuff. IMO, his stuff is completely average, there's nothing "plus" about any of it. Maybe when he was scouted, but not now.

[Flash- bd]

Matusz ended awful tonight, but he didn't start that way. He started the game mostly down in the zone. The fastball velocity was a little down in the first and second, but his fastball location was almost always down and usually on one corner or the other. It was really good to see. Now, even early he was throwing about 1 in 2 sliders in the middle of the zone. He kept giving up hits on poorly located sliders early on with the exception of the Pujols double which was on a fastball about belt high.

As the game went on, he started coming out of his delivery and his velocity started climbing. When that happened, the fastball location got much more erratic. He started throwing almost every fastball thigh to belt high. Some of them were still on corners, but they were mostly all up (thigh high is up in the majors).

So, the fastball stuff annoyed me because he had it going decently early. He was locating it down and on corners most of the time. Then, he started overthrowing again.

The slider was actually very, very sharp tonight, but he located it terribly. He threw it quite a bit, but left it in the middle of the plate ~50% of the time. When he located it well, he got some very weak swings. Very, very annoying.

The change up location and deceptiveness were pretty good early, but his fade/drop wasn't very good. However, as he came out of his delivery on the fastball, he also started throwing just awful change ups. The last one to Burgois was as bad a pitch as you'll ever see.

My biggest question on the night was where the hell was the mid-70s curveball? I saw exactly two of them. IMHO, that is his best pitch right now and the pitch he needs to use to keep hitters off his fastball if his change is poor which it almost always is. He basically discarded it tonight. It makes no sense to me.

The change up is going to make or break Matusz along with this overthrowing FB thing. If he can't get those things straight, I think he is doomed. I'm starting to get worried about the change up. It just doesn't look like a ML pitch to me right now and, when the location is poor, it is a super easy pitch to hit.

agree with most of what you say here but Matusz was pretty poor with his FB command throughout, it just didn't show up as much. An AB to Tory Hunter in the 3rd especially sticks out, when he threw Tory Hunter two belt high meatballs that Tory took big hacks at and fouled back. Then on 1-2 he threw another fastball right down the middle and Tory lined it up the middle for an RBI single. As you mentioned the location to Pujols was really terrible on that FB as well, and he also threw quite a few FBs up in the zone to Trout that he was lucky to get away with. Palmer alluded to his lack of FB command saying he was going to get hurt with his velocity where it was and him locating where he was.

Also I'm pretty sure the pitch to Bourjos was a slider that didn't really have any tilt, not a change-up. I guess I can agree with the slider being very, very tight--he threw a really good one for the K but I didn't see many that he really snapped off, and I definitely saw a bunch that he left right in the middle of the plate so I don't know if it's fair to characterize his slider as a good pitch tonight. I actually didn't think his change-up was too bad; I remember one that he got a swing and miss on on the outside corner, and another where he had a hitter way out in front. But the change-up he threw to Hester which almost ended up a 3-R HR was a terrible one, and Palmer commented on a couple other ones he left up.

[AmsO]

I agree 100% that Matusz shouldn't have been out there for the 6th. He was awful tonight, but Buck has been worse. Opposing pitcher struggling with 2 on and no out and you give them an out with Roberts up. Go for the big inning there especially considering how challenged this team has been offensively.

[EKarre23]

This is why I think he'll be doomed. Seems like every critique I read of Matusz talks about his lack of command/location. Poor fastball location...poor fastball command....poor location on the change-up....etc, etc.

If you have filthy stuff, you might be able to get away with poor command. Matusz, unfortunately, doesn't have filthy stuff. IMO, his stuff is completely average, there's nothing "plus" about any of it. Maybe when he was scouted, but not now.

Exactly. His stuff is far from impressive and he can't even locate what he does have. Not a good recipe for success. I wanna see Tillman again.

[Great 2BA FL Gator]

This is why I think he'll be doomed. Seems like every critique I read of Matusz talks about his lack of command/location. Poor fastball location...poor fastball command....poor location on the change-up....etc, etc.

If you have filthy stuff, you might be able to get away with poor command. Matusz, unfortunately, doesn't have filthy stuff. IMO, his stuff is completely average, there's nothing "plus" about any of it. Maybe when he was scouted, but not now.

I don't think his stuff has changed too much since he came up. He just doesn't command it anymore. I keep hoping something will click to get him back to the promise he once showed.

Consistency is the word for him and unlike Arrieta, he once showed great promise. Some like me, hope he can somehow get back to that, others watch what they see now and say he is done. I think it's really anybody's guess, but it don't look pretty right now.

[Lucky Jim]

I totally agree that by the third inning he had started overthrowing and a lot of the fastballs were up. I saw most of the good fastballs that were down in innings 1 and 2.

I went back and slow motioned the homer to Bourgois several times. It was definitely a change up. I could see his hand around the ball when he took the hand out of the glove. Awful, awful pitch.

I agree - this is what I took away, but I was working, so my attention was divided. The first two innings, however, he looked to be locating his FB down to me, and even in and out at times.

[Lucky Jim]

My opinion on Matusz's stuff now versus when he was good in 2010:

If you disregard command and just look at quality of stuff,

FB is slightly down

Slider is slightly better

Curveball about the same

Change up is much worse. I would have said 55-60 pitch in 2010. I'd guess 40-45 right now.

His command is significantly worse.

Get him down there, put him with Peterson, and try to get his head back on straight. He's not going to be effective w/o the plus change.

After the last year and a half, he hasn't "earned" a right to be on the MLB staff any more than Tillman, to be sure.

[Great 2BA FL Gator]

BTW, I agree that Matusz needs to go down at this point. I think the thing that concerns me most is that Matusz seems to now believe he has to be a 65-70% FB guy. He'll never succeed like that.

Not having a good change up every once in a while is going to happen, but I haven't seen him throw a game with mostly good change ups all year. As others have written, the quality of the pitch has fallen substantially.

His ability to pitch backwards was one of my favorite things about him. You never exactly knew what he was going to throw and the change up had a lot to do with that. Maybe we've seen less of that this year because he isn't commanding his secondary stuff consistently.

He has to have all four pitches to succeed at a high level. Doesn't hurt to send him down to see if he can find himself. He has it in him somewhere. It's not like the league figured him out.

[Greg]

Time to move on from Matusz. He has had enough chances.

[Tony-OH]

Matusz ended awful tonight, but he didn't start that way. He started the game mostly down in the zone. The fastball velocity was a little down in the first and second, but his fastball location was almost always down and usually on one corner or the other. It was really good to see. Now, even early he was throwing about 1 in 2 sliders in the middle of the zone. He kept giving up hits on poorly located sliders early on with the exception of the Pujols double which was on a fastball about belt high.

As the game went on, he started coming out of his delivery and his velocity started climbing. When that happened, the fastball location got much more erratic. He started throwing almost every fastball thigh to belt high. Some of them were still on corners, but they were mostly all up (thigh high is up in the majors).

So, the fastball stuff annoyed me because he had it going decently early. He was locating it down and on corners most of the time. Then, he started overthrowing again.

The slider was actually very, very sharp tonight, but he located it terribly. He threw it quite a bit, but left it in the middle of the plate ~50% of the time. When he located it well, he got some very weak swings. Very, very annoying.

The change up location and deceptiveness were pretty good early, but his fade/drop wasn't very good. However, as he came out of his delivery on the fastball, he also started throwing just awful change ups. The last one to Burgois was as bad a pitch as you'll ever see.

My biggest question on the night was where the hell was the mid-70s curveball? I saw exactly two of them. IMHO, that is his best pitch right now and the pitch he needs to use to keep hitters off his fastball if his change is poor which it almost always is. He basically discarded it tonight. It makes no sense to me.

The change up is going to make or break Matusz along with this overthrowing FB thing. If he can't get those things straight, I think he is doomed. I'm starting to get worried about the change up. It just doesn't look like a ML pitch to me right now and, when the location is poor, it is a super easy pitch to hit.

Great stuff Bruce. I didn't have a good look at his location from the press box but he sure as heck was not fooling too many guys, even early on when a lot of outs were hit sharply.