How has Gausman gotten this screwed up?

[NashLumber]

I heard Dave Johnson mention on the radio after the game that every time he was ahead in the count or wanted to be up in the zone, by Gausman's own admission, he left it belt high and down the middle. From my angle in LF, I could not verify, but did it look like this to anyone? Is it any harder to hit the target high than in or out? Is it his height or arm slot? Landing of his feet?

[TINSTAAPP]

13 hours ago, OFFNY said:

o

 

Kevin Gausman and Jeremy Guthrie are two of the worst Orioles pitchers that I have ever seen in terms of inspiring their offense.

They really suck at it.

 

o

It's got to be really discouraging for an offense to have a pitcher who constantly gives back runs after the team builds a lead for him. 

[OFFNY]

5 minutes ago, TINSTAAPP said:

 

It's got to be really discouraging for an offense to have a pitcher who constantly gives back runs after the team builds a lead for him. 

 

o
 

And even more discouraging when the offense doesn't score any runs in the first place.

 

o

[jtschrei]

Hugely disappointing season from Gausman. I thought this would be a breakout year for him. When he first came up, I thought his FB / Changeup (split) combo was devastating. I had seen the Rays have such success with that combination in their system and I thought Gausman was going to have the same kind of success. 

But the facts are that he doesn't know how to pitch. If you just compare him to Bundy, the difference is stark. Bundy knows what he's doing out there -- off-speed when he's behind in the count, the occasional BP fastball, balls just off the plate that he gets hitters to chase. Gausman throws FBs in hitters counts and his stuff is getting crushed. CRUSHED. 

I blame Gausman and the way the organization develops pitchers. When he came up, I thought Gausman was can't miss -- #1 or #2 TOR starter. He's just not that. I want Buck to move him to the bullpen. 

 

 

[Can_of_corn]

11 minutes ago, TINSTAAPP said:

It's got to be really discouraging for an offense to have a pitcher who constantly gives back runs after the team builds a lead for him. 

Disclaimer:  I never played the game at a high level.

Hitters get maybe 500 at bats.  Those at bats can mean millions or even tens of millions of dollars.  I would be shocked to find out that they go up to the plate ruminating about how the pitcher coughed up a two run lead.

I'm going to postulate that players at the ML level are able to tune that sort of stuff out and concentrate on the matter at hand.

[OFFNY]

16 minutes ago, Roy Firestone said:

 

I thought he was much better last night,MUCH. But he still can't finish batters when getting ahead and he still throws way too many pitches,We weren't going to beat Carrasco anyway. He's a superior pitcher, and so is Andrew Miller.

 

o

 

When Carrasco departed last night's game, he had just loaded the bases with nobody out and a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the 7th inning.

The game was far from over at that point, hence it wasn't a matter of the Orioles not going to beat Carrasco anyway, it was a matter of whether or not the Indians' bullpen was going to hold the fort for them, which they did.

 

o

[Going Underground]

1 hour ago, jtschrei said:

Hugely disappointing season from Gausman. I thought this would be a breakout year for him. When he first came up, I thought his FB / Changeup (split) combo was devastating. I had seen the Rays have such success with that combination in their system and I thought Gausman was going to have the same kind of success. 

But the facts are that he doesn't know how to pitch. If you just compare him to Bundy, the difference is stark. Bundy knows what he's doing out there -- off-speed when he's behind in the count, the occasional BP fastball, balls just off the plate that he gets hitters to chase. Gausman throws FBs in hitters counts and his stuff is getting crushed. CRUSHED. 

I blame Gausman and the way the organization develops pitchers. When he came up, I thought Gausman was can't miss -- #1 or #2 TOR starter. He's just not that. I want Buck to move him to the bullpen. 

 

 

Rays have many different pitching philosophies. They go against the grain. The book The Arm explains some of them. Also major league pitching coach has been in the system for years. Orioles seem to have a new one almost every year. Orioles also got rid of the minor league instructor. Do the Orioles have a philosophy throughout the minor leagues? 

 

Odorizzi can do it, as can a lot of his teammates. None of the 50 hardest throwers in the majors last season (minimum 50 innings) pitched for Tampa Bay. Yet a Fangraphs study this month showed that the Rays threw more than 60 percent of their four-seam fastballs up in the zone, easily the most in baseball. This continued a trend for a low-payroll franchise well known for seeking every possible edge.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/sports/baseball/tampa-bay-rays-pitching.html

[NashLumber]

1 hour ago, jtschrei said:

Hugely disappointing season from Gausman. I thought this would be a breakout year for him. When he first came up, I thought his FB / Changeup (split) combo was devastating. I had seen the Rays have such success with that combination in their system and I thought Gausman was going to have the same kind of success. 

But the facts are that he doesn't know how to pitch. If you just compare him to Bundy, the difference is stark. Bundy knows what he's doing out there -- off-speed when he's behind in the count, the occasional BP fastball, balls just off the plate that he gets hitters to chase. Gausman throws FBs in hitters counts and his stuff is getting crushed. CRUSHED. 

I blame Gausman and the way the organization develops pitchers. When he came up, I thought Gausman was can't miss -- #1 or #2 TOR starter. He's just not that. I want Buck to move him to the bullpen. 

 

 

Agree with all but the last sentence. I don't think a BP stint will solve this. There's a glimmer of hope he turned a small corner last night. Been in a hole all year, so a turnaround from such depths will be subtle and gradual if it occurs. High pitch count, yes. But he did not implode for 6 runs like some past outings. A 3- 0 deficit seemed big until the offense didn't cash in with that bases loaded- no out scenario late. 

[Ohfan67]

33 minutes ago, Going Underground said:

Rays have many different pitching philosophies. They go against the grain. The book The Arm explains some of them. Also major league pitching coach has been in the system for years. Orioles seem to have a new one almost every year. Orioles also got rid of the minor league instructor. Do the Orioles have a philosophy throughout the minor leagues? 

 

Odorizzi can do it, as can a lot of his teammates. None of the 50 hardest throwers in the majors last season (minimum 50 innings) pitched for Tampa Bay. Yet a Fangraphs study this month showed that the Rays threw more than 60 percent of their four-seam fastballs up in the zone, easily the most in baseball. This continued a trend for a low-payroll franchise well known for seeking every possible edge.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/sports/baseball/tampa-bay-rays-pitching.html

Thanks for sharing. Much appreciated. I think we would probably all agree that we doubt that the Orioles have a pitching "philosophy" and there's been a lot of turnover in coaches. But a lot of this is about the talent too. I don't think Gausman could have hit a spot up in the zone when he had two strikes on a hitter last night. The Orioles pitching problems doesn't really seem to be about philosophy (e.g., down and away or up in the zone), but more about their pitchers not being able to locate and many have relatively weak stuff. It's not clear how much of that is about development because a lot of innings go to mediocre pitchers that DD picks up here and there. Some of the relievers that come through the Orioles organization are better than most of the starters, but not sure if that means anything. Anyway, thanks for sharing and interesting read. 

[Camden_yardbird]

The odd thing is the stats don't tell you much.

Speed:  we can dispose of this being the reason right away.  Gausman may actually be throwing the ball harder.  That may straighten out pitches though.  His average FB has been 95 mph, up from 94.7.

Pitch Selection:  there are some interesting trends here.  Gausman has thrown his FB more (66.8% from 60.8%) and his slider more (15.6% from 13.3).  This has come at a small expense of his change up which is a near negligible throw percentage below 2% and a big decrease in his splitter (17.3% from 21.3%).  From this you might hypothesize that they were taking away a good pitch.  But his splitter actually went from a good pitch last year to a bad pitch this year.

So the league has figured him out right?

Not necessarily.  He is not giving up harder contact with only a 2% increase in hard contact.  Hitters are swinging a lot less at his pitches outside the zone (28.3% O-Swing rate from 34.3%)  Which has lead to an increase in walks.  Hitters are also making more contact with his out of zone pitches (65% to 72%) so he is not getting strikeouts with balls outside the zone.

He seems to lack a consistent out pitch.  And his out pitch of choice right now (high fastball) is not one he can execute.  Looks like a poorly prepared pitcher to me.

[OFFNY]

o

 

(vs. BLUE JAYS, 6/27)

 

Solid game overall.

This was Gausman's 2nd consecutive outing in which he was at least decent or better.

 

o

[LookitsPuck]

Huge step in the right direction. He's still throwing a ton of pitches, but this one was pretty good.

5 1/3, 4 H, 2 BB, 4 SO, 0 ER, 99 pitches

[MDtransplant757]

1 hour ago, LookitsPuck said:

Huge step in the right direction. He's still throwing a ton of pitches, but this one was pretty good.

5 1/3, 4 H, 2 BB, 4 SO, 0 ER, 99 pitches

He's getting better as the season is going. If he can keep this up, Tillman can bounce back, Bundy can keep going and Wade Miley isn't horrendous, it's playoff time

[Hallas]

1 hour ago, MDtransplant757 said:

He's getting better as the season is going. If he can keep this up, Tillman can bounce back, Bundy can keep going and Wade Miley isn't horrendous, it's playoff time

My aren't we optimistic...

 

[scOtt]

Just finishing watching the replay. Kevin had some good weapons tonight. Nice changes all game and some good FBs. Positive game.