John Lannan's Fourth Pitch

The Cubs broke their mini-slump with a 7-0 shut-out of the Nat's on Saturday night. Game 3 is Sunday, 12:35 CT. Ted Lilly will face John Lannan, who will be the third straight lefty starter for the Washington club.

Lannan hasn't passed the 60 inning mark yet, but has a decent ERA (3.86) but a scary K:BB (31:27, but 21:10 this year). Last season, he rarely threw a slider, but is using it a lot in 2008. Essentially, he's gone from four to five pitches, since being drafted.

In this 2006 interview, the then-prospect Lannan talks about his four pitches, pre-slider.

I have two seam fastball and a four seam fastball. I also throw a changeup and a curveball. My fastball is about 87-89 MPH. My changeup is about 80 MPH and my curveball is about 72 MPH. My changeup is my best pitch.

	mph	pfx_x	pfx_z	#	%
CH	81.2	6.5	9.2	57	8.9
CU	73.2	-2.9	-4.0	110	17.1
F2	86.6	5.8	6.3	189	29.4
F4	87.1	3.0	8.6	202	31.4
SL	81.3	-2.1	2.3	85	13.2
	83.3	2.5	5.0	643

	B	CS	SS	F	X	HR	Swings
CH	24	7	1	8	16	1	26
CU	33	21	12	16	27	1	56
F2	73	35	6	29	46	0	81
F4	90	40	8	30	34	0	72
SL	33	9	13	20	9	1	43
	253	112	40	103	132	3	278

	B%	CS%	SS%	F%	X%	HR%	Sw%
CH	42.1	12.3	1.8	14.0	28.1	1.8	45.61
CU	30.0	19.1	10.9	14.5	24.5	0.9	50.91
F2	38.6	18.5	3.2	15.3	24.3	0.0	42.86
F4	44.6	19.8	4.0	14.9	16.8	0.0	35.64
SL	38.8	10.6	15.3	23.5	10.6	1.2	50.59
	39.3	17.4	6.2	16.0	20.5	0.5	43.23

	B:CS	ISZ%	corner%
CH	3.4	38.60	12.28
CU	1.6	47.27	14.55
F2	2.1	46.03	13.23
F4	2.3	41.09	12.38
SL	3.7	24.71	11.76
	2.3	41.21	12.91

	Whiff%	SwOOZ%	TaISZ%
CH	3.85	32.14	17.24
CU	21.43	55.81	29.85
F2	7.41	29.11	26.36
F4	11.11	23.96	32.08
SL	30.23	46.30	9.68
	14.39	34.67	26.53

I'm not so sure that change would be his best pitch. The slider looks effective, but wild. The F2/F4/CH may not be the best groupings, but they do jive pretty closely with MLBAM and Fangraphs.

Here are the scatters of pfx and plate location