Friar Watch

David Wells relies on control even more than most pitchers. When he’s not throwing his curveball for strikes and his fastball isn’t catching the edge of the strike zone he has to throw to the heart of the plate and he gets hard. Last night he showed what he can do when he’s spotting his pitches effectively.

First let’s take a look at all the fastballs Boomer threw last night. We’re not even going to worry about balls and strikes, just look at location:

Look at that cluster on the outside edge to a right hander (view is from the catcher’s perspective). Regardless of what the umpire calls that’s where David needs to be. When he’s throwing like that he’s usually effective.

Boomer’s best pitch is his curve so let’s take a look:

The important thing here is he was throwing the curve for strikes low in the zone. It’s also interesting that he didn’t throw a single curve that was outside to a right hander or inside to a left hander. Everything was down and in. He may be getting up there in years but when Wells has his command he’s still effective.

Earlier in the week I heard Darren Ballsley on 1090 XX radio talking about Wells. He said that Boomer had been trying to pitch around certain hitters this year, in order to get at guys he felt more comfortable with. He said that was out of character for Wells and something they were going to work on. I think this game will help build David’s confidence and he’ll go back to being more aggressive with his pitches.