Friar Watch

Jake Peavy: Just another ho hum outing from Jake, 7 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 1 BB, 8 K. Rather than break this one down into individual outcomes let’s just take a look at all pitches:

Green = pitches to lefties
Red = pitches to right handers
White = release point

The most obvious thing is the three pitches where Jake dropped down to a sidearm delivery. That’s usually pretty effective, probably because Jake doesn’t use it too often.

Jake lives on the outer half against lefties, he loves to throw that backdoor slider for a called strike. Against right handers he’s more in the strike zone but still has his share of sliders out of the zone.

One thing I’ve noticed about Jake this season is he rarely misses out of the zone high. I wonder if that was the case last year?

Heath Bell: I’m loving Heath Bell this season. He could be closing for most teams but the Mets just gave up on him. Sabermetric types like to discount anything that can’t be measured but I think there’s something to be said for confidence and when the Padres showed that they believed in Bell he had the confidence to go out and challenge hitters.

Trevor Hoffman: Trevor gave up a single to Tony Gwynn Jr. but the outcome was never in doubt.