Fukudome's First Game - PITCHf/x

Yesterday's opener featured impressive pitching, an amazing new field and drainage system, and the arrival of Kosuke Fukudome. Kosuke's 3-for-3 afternoon included a walk, and contact on each of the three pitches he swung at. To top it all off, Hit Tracker credits Fukudome with a 424 ft. "real distance" shot.

In addition to the home run, which was on a up and middle/outside 91.6 mph Eric Gagne fastball, he singled up the middle on a Ben Sheets curve ball, and hit a line-drive double off a Sheets fastball. He only took two called strikes, and took seven other pitches for balls. Let's look at the numbers, and then the pictures.

AB	Pitch	vs	Outcome	mph	plateX	plateZ	pfx_x	pfx_z	type
1	1	Sheets	2B	89.8	0.18	2.38	-5.69	11.21	Fastball
2	1	Sheets	B	94.0	-1.44	2.61	-5.83	12.00	Fastball
2	2	Sheets	CS	80.0	0.10	2.69	5.51	-5.81	Curve
2	3	Sheets	B	93.5	1.10	3.60	-7.93	11.47	Fastball
2	4	Sheets	B	80.1	-0.49	1.42	3.45	-8.23	Curve
2	5	Sheets	B	93.8	-0.68	1.53	-7.00	12.76	Fastball
3	1	Sheets	1B	80.8	-0.61	1.90	2.12	-3.68	Curve
4	1	Gagne	B	82.1	-1.31	2.82	-8.91	0.75	Change
4	2	Gagne	B	91.9	-1.91	4.28	-6.09	9.45	Fastball
4	3	Gagne	B	90.7	0.89	2.55	-7.08	9.86	Fastball
4	4	Gagne	CS	92.0	-0.17	2.73	-5.77	10.81	Fastball
4	5	Gagne	HR	91.6	-0.57	2.99	-8.89	10.27	Fastball

Release points for both pitchers. From the catcher's perspective, as in these charts, Fukudome would be standing to your right. From where I sat, it did look like Gagne was setting up (and digging in, slowly) on the 1st base side of the rubber. I think you can see that reflected here in his release points - obviously, all from AB #4 (light blue boxes):



Here is the PFX, or spin movement (in inches) for all the pitches Kosuke faced on Monday:



He saw mostly fastballs, plus three curves from Sheets and one change-up (according to Gameday) from Gagne. Here are the plate locations, first for the swings (and hits, in this case) and then for the takes (mostly balls):



As you can see above, he didn't swing at anything that wasn't pretty fat. Singling off a curve, a little down and a little away, is nice work. You can also see that the curve he hit had the least movement of the three he saw (compare the triangle to the pink boxes in the lower-right quadrant of the PFX chart).



He got the call at the knees twice, and that inside pitch is clearly off the plate, and not really a rule book strike as depicted. The first called strike was a curve ball. The next was a fastball from Gagne. Gagne came back on the very next pitch with another fastball, this one more up and a little more out away, too. Kosuke turned it into a souvenir.