Friar Watch

Justin Germano: Wow. Germano was even stronger than his first start, he was perfect through the first 4 innings and finished with 7 strong innings, 3 hits, 3 strikeouts and zero walks. What really impressed me was he seemed to throw fewer curves than last time. The Gameday velocity data backs this up:

(Note: Ths chart only covers innings 1-6, there is no data for the 7th)
He didn’t throw a curveball until nearly 50 pitches into the game. He relied on changing speeds and location on his fastball and a a few chageups. Compare that to his last outing in Atlanta:

That doesn’t even look like the same pitcher. Just a fantastic job of staying unpredictable and keeping the hitters off balance. Two starts is still a small sample size but the fact that Germano was successful with two radically different gameplans is a very good sign for his future.

One interesting note: Bard was behind the plate in Atlanta, Bowen caught Germano today. I wonder if that explains the radically different pitch selection?

Scott Linebrink, Trevor Hoffman With the 7 strong innings and a 3 run lead Bud Black was able to use his preferred combination of Linebrink and Hoffman. Both were automatic and looked pretty good. No drama in the late innings.