Please Find Some Mojo in Florida (Nolasco f/x)

What a brutal stop in Cincinnati. The Cubs "embarrassed" Mike Quade on Monday, leading to a team meeting. Futility won over, as the Reds scored seven unearned runs in another cruddy loss.

Now it's off to Miami to face the Marlins, who are playing pretty good baseball. The Cubs will face Ricky Nolasco and Christopher Volstad and then head to Fenway for a three game weekend against the Red Sox.

In other words, things aren't getting easier. And Ryan Dempster (ex-Marlin) and Casey Coleman (Floridian) are targets of irrational, geography-driven expectations.

Nolasco has good stuff, a whole array of pitches. You can call his cutter a slider, his slider a curve, and his curve a slow curve. He throws a splitter and a fastball, along with a sinker and may be some straight changes along the way. I'll close my eyes and pretend he takes something of his fastball and walk away slowly.

The "sliders" that cap off the "curveballs" aren't always in the mix, 2011 being a season of just two "sliders" to date.

Did I mention he'll drop down to a lower arm slot? Extra fun.

Nolasco profiles as a swing-and-miss guy with fly ball tendencies. 2011, however, has seen a pick-up in his ground balls rate.

100+ SCALE (proportion of league average)

Season	Pitch	PT	MPH	Swing	Whiff	Foul	B:CS	IWZ	Chase	Watch	nkSLG	GB%	LD%	FB%	PU%	HR/FL%
2008	ALL	3137	98	108	105	102	76	112	113	102	103	87	100	103	147	128
2009	ALL	3024	99	106	111	107	90	104	115	97	115	87	116	114	82	113
2010	ALL	2336	99	107	111	98	76	102	118	96	120	87	111	110	112	132
2011	ALL	715	98	108	112	88	86	97	141	114	105	102	111	103	46	113
ALL	ALL	9212	99	107	109	102	81	106	118	100	111	89	111	107	109	123

As usual, Nolasco isn't walking many guys, but he's going out of the zone (IWZ) more often while fooling batters in and out of the zone more often (Watch and Chase, respectively). Put it all together, and Nolasco is looking as effective as he was two or three years ago.