Friar Watch

During the 2004 and 2005 seasons Scott Linebrink was one of the most dominant relievers in baseball. Averaging nearly a strikeout an inning and holding opposing hitters below .200 he seemed to be Trevor Hoffman’s heir apparent. Then last year we started to see some weaknesses in Scott’s game. He seemed to have fewer 1-2-3 innings and gave up twice as many home runs as the previous season. Would he be able to bounce back in ‘07?

Scott lost some weight in the off season and looked great in the early going. Throwing just as hard as ever with some nice movement on his pitches he seemed posed to regain his elite status. Unfortunately the results have been inconsistent. His vulnerability to the home run has only gotten worse and his strikeout rate has plummeted.

What’s puzzling about this is his stuff usually looks good. He’s throwing as hard as ever and seems to have good movement. There was some speculation that he’s been “pitching to contact”, something that I never like to hear about a power pitcher. I mean it’s great for Justin Germano or Greg Maddux but guys like Peavy and Linebrink have the stuff to blow guys away and they should be trying to do it.

Generally I associate strikeouts with good movement and home runs with mistakes up in the zone. Following that logic, Linebrink has lost movement and command. Arm trouble perhaps? Over reliance on the fastball? Poor pitch selection by his catchers? I’m afraid I don’t have the answer. There’s no Enhanced Gameday data for 2004 or 2005 so it’s hard to make comparisons. Any other ideas?

Linebrink should no longer be the automatic 8th inning guy. Heath Bell has been much more reliable and should assume that role. Linebrink’s tendency to give up home runs should also make him the last option in extra inning games on the road.

Jake Peavy: Another matchup of aces as Peavy faced Brad Penny. This time nothing weird happened and Jake was back to normal.

Back on 6/07 I wrote that I was concerned because Jake didn’t seem to have his usual good stuff. He went through a series of 3 or 4 starts where he just didn’t have the same bite on his slider. I posted a graph that showed his velocity and movement were down across the board. How does tonight’s start compare?

Blue: 5/27
Red: 6/07
Green: 6/30

That seems to jibe with the results; Jake hasn’t been at his peak but he’s better than he was earlier this month. It’ll be interesting to see how this data corresponds to Jake’s performance.

Heath Bell: A strong two innings from Bell. Nice to see him continue to be effective in a second inning.

The summer slacking continues here at Friar Watch. Trying to cover every game was perhaps a bit too ambitious; it’s given me a new appreciation for Geoff and the other real Padres bloggers. I’m going to switch focus a little and become more of a general Padres blog. I’ll still be working with the Gameday data and primarily cover Padres pitching but I’ll also try to cover other aspects of the team. Look for 3-5 updates per week rather than Game Notes for every single game.

Speaking of real Padre blogs, check out Friar Ball and Friar Forecast. Welcome aboard guys!

Over at Gaslamp Ball, Winfield’s Ghost has a terrific report on Matt Bush in the Arizona Summer League. I’m really excited about Bush as a pitcher; it sounds like he has great stuff and the switch to pitching has taken a lot of pressure off the kid. Judging by the photos of Bush in action I like his mechanics; he seems to keep his pitching arm elbow below the shoulder and his front shoulder is tilted up pretty high. I can see how he can generate such velocity out of a small frame.

Over at the AOL Fanhouse, I was privileged enough to be included in a nice round table discussion on the state of the Padres. Geoff from Ducksnorts and jbox from Gaslamp Ball also participated; get over there and check it out! (Sorry about the late link Larry)

Lastly, I wanted to weigh in on the Barrett and Bradley acquisitions. Summary: I love both moves. I think Barrett’s problems were greatly exaggerated by the Chicago media and Lou Piniella. I’ve never liked Piniella, he always seems to have drama with his players and as Geoff Blum commented, he usually ends up scapegoating his catcher. Barrett has already shown a nice arm behind the plate and a good approach at bat. I think we can expect some passed balls but if he can hit I’ll live with it.

I generally have a low tolerance for “troubled” athletes but from things I’ve read in the past year or two Milton Bradley seems like he genuinely wants to become a good citizen. A combination of factors could help keep him in line: Paul DePodesta brought him to LA and now to San Diego, knowing that he’s wanted by someone who is already familiar with him could provide some validation for Bradley. Also, I believe this is the last year of his contract. He has every incentive to behave. One ace in the hole could be the Padres medical staff. Don’t forget that Dave Roberts also had a reputation as a fragile player but once he was in San Diego the staff put him on a new training regimen and he was pretty healthy during his stay in San Diego. Now that he’s in San Francisco those health problems have resurfaced. When healthy, Bradley is capable of the spectacular; the Padre trainers may just be able to keep him healthy down the stretch.

Justin Germano: Not a bad outing at all for Germano, 6 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, but more importantly 4 K and 1 BB. Germano’s strikeout rate is slowly creeping up to an acceptable level. he did give up a home run but overall pitched well.

Cla Meredith: Another nice outing for The Claw. He seems to be regaining his effectiveness but since there’s no Enhanced Gameday in Frisco I can’t look at his location.

Scott Linebrink: Another innefective outing for Linebrink.

Heath Bell: Bud Black extended Bell for a second inning, something that’s burned the Padres in the past but Bell was up to the task and didn’t allow a run.

Justin Hampson: I guess you could call it luck when a ground ball goes between first and second and drives in the winning run but it’s still a L no matter how you slice it.

Yeah, I know I’m slacking. The biggest series of the year and not only am I late, I have all three games in one post. I’ll try to make this quick so I can get caught up.

Game 1
Greg Maddux: The Professor pitched a great game considering the opposition. He really deserved a win but the Padres bats once again could not break through when they had men on base early.

Cla Meredith, Scott Linebrink: Both guys looked good. It was especially gratifying to see Meredith get some of those little squib grounders that he gets when he’s really on.

Royce Ring: In his return from Portland Ring was absolutely filthy, striking out the side on 11 pitches.

Game 2
Chris Young: I think you have to consider CY the ace of the staff, the one guy you would start if you had to win a single game. Peavy is great but there’s always that X factor, you never know if his emotions will get the better of him or if he’s got a cracked rib he’s not telling anyone about or God knows what else. Young, on the other hand, is able to turn that extra adrenaline to his advantage. Young was as focused and confident as I’ve ever seen him; he was throwing all his pitches for strikes and really mixing them up.

CY has always relied on his fastball, usually he mixes in his slider and curve to keep the hitters honest. But for this game he was throwing a lot more breaking balls than usual and getting them over for strikes. Take a look at his pitch velocity:

One other point: Young was throwing harder than he normally does, as high as 93 mph out of the hand. Normally he’s around 90. You can see he started to tail off towards the end but he was still punching guys out.

What I enjoy most about watching CY pitch is some of the hacks the hitters take against him. It really reminds me of Nolan Ryan, guys are just overpowered. Considering the relatively mediocre velocity it truly is amazing.

Heath Bell, Justin Hampson: Bell looked good, not great but good. The Red Sox finally broke through for a run in the ninth against Hampson but he did his job and closed it out without requiring another pitcher.

Game 3
Jake Peavy:
Coming into this game we should have felt confident that our ace would match Josh Beckett pitch for pitch but I think most of us had our doubts. Jake hasn’t been the same dominant pitcher over his last 4 or 5 starts. His slider hasn’t been as sharp and his velocity was very slightly down. I speculated he might have arm trouble; if he does he’s not telling anyone. Jake seemed to be fine in the first inning but a couple of freak plays in the second seemed to affect him negatively; he really labored after that.

Once again, here’s Jake’s velocity chart:

The second inning starts at pitch 14 and ends at 35. Look at how his peak velocity drops off after that. The third inning is pitch 36 through 73; at that point you can see Jake is really laboring. I give him credit for battling though a tough outing but it sure would be nice if he could just cruise through a big game for once.

Royce Ring: Another terrific outing for Ring. He’s a lefty but he’s no LOOGY, he can get anyone out.

Scott Linebrink: When you’re only down 1 to the Red Sox you can sort of convince yourself you have a chance but when Linebrink gave up that home run it had to demoralize the team. You’re just not going to get 2 runs against Papelbon.

Trevor Hoffman: Trevor came in just to get some work and he really made the Boston hitters look foolish, retiring the side on 5 pitches.