With Rich Harden on the mound, the Cubs will try and snap-out of their funk against Padres rookie Mat Latos. Latos is a tall right-hander with some stellar heat on his fastball.
- Not a ground ball pitcher (34% GB per BIP)
- Change-up and sinker are least used, and least succesful
- Fastball averages over 95 and is tough to hit well (12% pop-ups and 18% line drives)
- Slider is his "ground ball" pitch, has an absurd .516 whiff rate and an equally crazy .644 watch rate
- Umps may not be calling strikes on his breaking ball, that high watch rate still only buys him a 3.1:1 B:CS ratio
- He's tall, comes over-the-top with a nice downward plane
- Has a few looks to the slider
I'm not sure what kind of change-up he's throwing. He looks a little Harden-esque (check out the spin movement graph here), doesn't he? The slider and change are usually between 80-85, but he'll sneak above or below that range on occasion.
While his fastball and slider are the best of Latos' arsenal, he may be the beneficiary of some good luck on balls in play against both of those.
rv100 is based on actual batted ball outcomes (single, double etc) and rv100e is based on batted ball type (liner, fly etc). 0 is average, by definition, with negative numbers being better for the pitcher. rv100 means run value (defined by linear weights) per 100 pitches. He hasn't even thrown 600 total pitches in the majors, so take 'em with a grain of salt.
pitch rv100 rv100e
change 4.91 -0.36
two-seam FB 3.85 6.76
four-seam FB -2.04 -0.75
slider -1.17 -0.57
He's thrown, in order shown above, 70, 22, 336 and 101 of each pitch. Whatever the numbers are showing, his two favorite pitches look quite good.
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