Zach Tonight

[Flash- bd]

When the chips are down, you can expect any homegrown Orioles starting pitcher TO FAIL

Yup, like yesterday.

[paulcoates]

Yup, like yesterday.

Tillman was traded to us. And besides are you really saying that Tillman has had even 1/2 of a season of success?

[Flash- bd]

Tillman was traded to us. And besides are you really saying that Tillman has had even 1/2 of a season of success?

All I said was: "Yup, like yesterday."

[paulcoates]

All I said was: "Yup, like yesterday."

Okie dokie

[OFFNY]

.

ZACH BRITTON O(vs. ATHLETICS 7/27)

IP:O 5.67

H:o. 6

R:O. 6

BB:. 3

SO:. 2

Pitches: 101 (56 Strikes, 45 Balls)

2012 ERA: 5.74

**********

ZACH BY INNINGS

31

17

7

9

19

18 *

* Britton recorded 2 outs in the 6th inning before departing.

[Frobby]

Kind of a misleading line for Zach tonight, IMO. For the first couple of batters I actually thought he looked very sharp. The second batter walked on two borderline pitchers that are called strikes on a lot of other nights, basically thrown right where Zach wants to live. Then Reddick hits that fluky bad hopper over Reynolds' head. Then Zach throws a wild pitch that, in my mind, Wieters probably corrals (though I'm not saying it was a bad play by Teagraden). I did not see the rest of the inning, and obviously Zach allowed a big HR, but I'm just saying that easily could have been a 1-2-3 inning if some breaks go his way.

Then in the 6th, he gets two outs, walks a guy, and the reliever allows that run to score.

Overall, not a great outing, but not as bad as the line score.

[mark_beckens]

Kind of a misleading line for Zach tonight, IMO. For the first couple of batters I actually thought he looked very sharp. The second batter walked on two borderline pitchers that are called strikes on a lot of other nights, basically thrown right where Zach wants to live. Then Reddick hits that fluky bad hopper over Reynolds' head. Then Zach throws a wild pitch that, in my mind, Wieters probably corrals (though I'm not saying it was a bad play by Teagraden). I did not see the rest of the inning, and obviously Zach allowed a big HR, but I'm just saying that easily could have been a 1-2-3 inning if some breaks go his way.

Then in the 6th, he gets two outs, walks a guy, and the reliever allows that run to score.

Overall, not a great outing, but not as bad as the line score.

The homer was a good pitch, in on his hands. Was a really good piece of hitting, IMO.

[Fired-Up]

You know I regrettably change my tune about sinkerballers all the time. They are the biggest enigma in baseball in my opinion. To my knowledge ground balls go for base hits far more often than lazy fly balls. So hitting it on the ground leads to base hits. I know you can't hit a home run off a grounder, but OBP is the number stat in baseball. So if you give up hits, bad things happen. Sinkerballers just don't generate K's. I know strikeouts are dramatic and exciting, but at the same time they seem to be crucial. The top pitchers always have a high k rate and high k totals. Tonight we saw from Britton and JJ that sinkerballers are just unreliable. With all this said though when the balls are hit to the infielders they mow through a lineup like no other. I don't know. I suppose if I had my way this team wouldn't have any sinkerballers on it.

[Flash- bd]

Kind of a misleading line for Zach tonight, IMO. For the first couple of batters I actually thought he looked very sharp. The second batter walked on two borderline pitchers that are called strikes on a lot of other nights, basically thrown right where Zach wants to live. Then Reddick hits that fluky bad hopper over Reynolds' head. Then Zach throws a wild pitch that, in my mind, Wieters probably corrals (though I'm not saying it was a bad play by Teagraden). I did not see the rest of the inning, and obviously Zach allowed a big HR, but I'm just saying that easily could have been a 1-2-3 inning if some breaks go his way.

Then in the 6th, he gets two outs, walks a guy, and the reliever allows that run to score.

Overall, not a great outing, but not as bad as the line score.

Yeah, this is a pretty fair take but it is worth noting he just didn't have very good stuff tonight. His FB was moving less and had less velocity than against Cleveland (when it was really phenomenal, IMO) and his breaking ball and change similarly suffered. His command wasn't very good either. All in all, he had a major off-night yet still didn't pitch that bad, and as you note, probably "deserved" better than his line.

I'm pretty confident about his future outlook.

[Frobby]

Tonight we saw from Britton and JJ that sinkerballers are just unreliable.

While I can't dispute that a ball in play is more likely to be a hit than a strikeout is, JJ has been pretty darned reliable over the years, and this year. There are quite a lot of relievers with high K rates that I would put in the "unreliable" catogory.

[clapdiddy]

While I can't dispute that a ball in play is more likely to be a hit than a strikeout is, JJ has been pretty darned reliable over the years, and this year. There are quite a lot of relievers with high K rates that I would put in the "unreliable" catogory.

It also hurts when your sinker down in the zone is getting called a ball. I don't know if any of those were called against Zach, but Johnson definitely had a few.

[Fired-Up]

Zach really did have a couple bad breaks tonight. I saw a pretty good slider. And since he is a sinkerballer he may only need 2 MLB pitches because he will be throwing the sinker so often. I'm not quite ready to give up on a 24 year old lefty with excellent movement on his sinker. The velocity loss is disturbing to me, but that is expected after coming of injury. Last year he hit 96.

[Lucky Jim]

It also hurts when your sinker down in the zone is getting called a ball. I don't know if any of those were called against Zach, but Johnson definitely had a few.

Johnson got obviously robbed on two pitches in the zone, and then got squeezed on two on the black.

Above is Britton's plot. Looks like he got squeezed a bit. Just a roundly ungenerous zone tonight. Here are his pitch results - not many swings and misses, but pretty solid in terms of movement:

Pitch Type 	Avg 	Max  	H-Break V-Break Count 	    Str% 	Whiffs / % 	SNIPs / % 	Linear WeightsFF (FourSeam)	91.45	93.1	5.21	8.63	29	15 / 51.72%	1 / 3.45% 	10 / 41.67%	5.1180CH (Changeup)	85.44	87.6	7.92	5.42	14	5 / 35.71%	3 / 21.43% 	4 / 30.77%	-0.1896SL (Slider)	81.42	84.5	-3.58	-0.59	19	10 / 52.63%	1 / 5.26% 	9 / 50.00%	-0.2586FT (TwoSeam)	91.71	93.4	9.02	6.14	39	26 / 66.67%	1 / 2.56% 	12 / 48.00%	-2.6101

Not a very good FB/CH differential, and his SL looked better than that to me, but I may just be remembering the good ones. The one thing you can really see in the plot is his inability, tonight, to command his movement - which took a lot of his pitches down out of the zone. This is something Stotle worried about when ZB was in the minors. If folks lay off those pitches, he can run into trouble.

[mark_beckens]

While I can't dispute that a ball in play is more likely to be a hit than a strikeout is,.

Actually, you can, that is a very easy one to prove.

[Lucky Jim]

Zach really did have a couple bad breaks tonight. I saw a pretty good slider. And since he is a sinkerballer he may only need 2 MLB pitches because he will be throwing the sinker so often. I'm not quite ready to give up on a 24 year old lefty with excellent movement on his sinker. The velocity loss is disturbing to me, but that is expected after coming of injury. Last year he hit 96.

Overall, his FB velocity is up on average from last year. His top-side may be down a little, but he's sitting at a solid 92MPH, and that's plenty of velo for a LHP with his movement.