Notes on Some Washington Pitchers

Wednesday's opponent will be Luis Atilano, making his second turn in the Nationals rotation in place of Jason Marquis. You can read about Atilano's journey (and his sinker) at Hardball Times. First they'll face Livan Hernandez, who has been strangely dominant so far in 2010.

The Cubs saw a little of the Washington bullpen last night and took advantage of Brian Bruney's control problems in the process. They haven't seen the best relievers in the D.C. bullpen -- closer Matt Capps and set-up man Tyler Clippard.

Not only have they been effective, but Jim Riggleman has been deploying them in high leverage situations. Not only are they the tops in Fangraphs' gmLI (a measure of how crucial a situation is when the pitcher entered the game) for the Nationals they rank 6th and 34th amongst National League relievers. Not bad for the closer/set-up guy on a middling (or worse) ball club.

I'll write more elsewhere about these two guys, but here are some quick observations and, in effect, previews of that upcoming piece.

Capps: throws two fastballs (a riser and tailer), both around 94 mph. He has a change-up in the upper-80s and a slider in mid-80s. His two-seam fastball is by no means a sinker, and he's a fly ball pitcher. He's had high whiff with the heater thus far, but his slider ain't working yet (no whiffs). I wonder what's going on, compared to his own history, with the slider and when the fastball will stop missing so many bats.

Clippard: a slightly slower fastball (maybe some sinkers occasionally) at 93, throws a slow curve in the mid-to-upper-70s, a sluttery slider in the upper 80s and a change-up in the lower 80s. He's also a fly ball pitcher, whiff rate has gone from mundane to outstanding after 2008, so I really need to dig back and see what he added/changed/dropped.

I'll drop a link here to any other Nationals stuff I do over the next day or so, and I'll probably have more on Atilano here at Cubs f/x.