After a tough loss and a split in Arizona, the Cubs head off to Chavez Ravine to face the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Cubs will send fan favorite James Russell, rock solid ace Ryan Dempster and former set-up guy Carlos Zambrano to the mound. The Dodgers counter with a trio with country clubber names, Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsley and Theodore Roosevelt Lilly.
Let's re-familiarize ourselves with Mr. Kershaw, heading all the way back to 2007 in PITCHf/x.
Pitch # MPH IWZ Whiff GB% SLGCON
Fastball 6034 94 .56 .209 43 .471
Curveball 1146 74 .41 .316 56 .372
Slider 1044 82 .47 .430 31 .384
Change-up 288 85 .48 .236 31 .541
8512 -- .53 .247 43 .458
Not bad, not bad at all.
He's thrown a few pitches that look like cutters recently, even a couple sinkers. But four pitches is close enough for the time being.
Kershaw leans heavily on the heater, resulting in these Pac-Man-esque pie charts.
That picture doesn't tell the whole story. Since adding the slider in June of 2009, it's become Kershaw's 2nd pitch.
As always, click to zoom and these are my own pitch classifications.
Kershaw is generally in the zone, a luxury afforded by the nasty stuff he throws and the plethora of fastballs in the mix.
You may be (overly) familiar with Russell by now, but let's give him the same treatment as Kershaw.
Pitch # MPH IWZ Whiff GB% SLGCON
Fastball 510 89 .58 .155 23 .696
Slider 395 80 .54 .317 41 .545
Change-up 119 80 .45 .204 50 .857
Curveball 29 73 .45 .417 67 1.667
Sinker 11 87 .55 .500 0 .000
1064 -- .55 .233 33 .680
Russell is quite the fly ball pitcher. More off-speed stuff, please. And sinkers, throw those more and see if they work or not. And, wow, 1000 pitches into his career and he's still getting hammered by the opposition. We'll hope for more regression to the mean.
Yawning Pac-Man with many sliders:
Stay up late, listen to Vin Scully, enjoy some baseball.
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