Overthinking It: Predi... (10/26)
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October 26, 2012 Playoff ProspectusWorld Series Game Two Recap: Giants 2, Tigers 0In Game One, we got a blowout, which is another way of saying we got one half of a pitcher’s duel. In Game Two, we got the whole duel. Both starters got through their first six innings unscathed. Both starters' lines showed fewer baserunners allowed than innings pitched. Both starters watched Andy Pettitte when they were younger and decided to steal that thing he does with his glove before each pitch.
The fastest pitch Doug Fister threw went 90.2 miles per hour, and the fastest pitch Madison Bumgarner threw went 90.7. If you like watching batters get blown away, you were probably bored by Bumgarner and Fister, but if you’re a fan of finesse pitchers (or Sergio Romo’s slider), this was one of the best combined pitching performances you’ve seen all season. Bumgarner’s command was missing in his first two postseason starts, but it was nearly perfect last night, as the World Series again brought out the best in him. He put most of his pitches where he wanted them and avoided making any serious mistakes. Against left-handed hitters, he stayed away almost exclusively:
Against right-handed hitters, he got fouls on the inside corner, called strikes on the outside corner, and swinging strikes up, completely avoiding the heart of the zone:
In the seventh inning, he got Miguel Cabrera to swing at and miss a 90-mph fastball; as Dan Brooks reported on Twitter, Cabrera had swung through only 11 fastballs slower than 91 mph all season. In that plate appearance, Bumgarner threw nothing over the plate between the waist and the knees, nibbling at the edges of the zone and mixing up his horizontal and vertical locations from pitch to pitch.
The only time he doubled up on location was from the third pitch to the fourth, when he followed a slider over the plate up with a fastball just a bit higher. Even though Cabrera had just seen a pitch in a similar location, his bat had been slowed by the slider just enough to make this miss possible:
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Is it a concern or a good thing that Bumgarner's velocity was only 90.7? His command certainly seemed good (love that chart with the big hole in the middle).
In his first playoff start in 2010 against Atlanta his fastball was sitting 94-95 in the first two innings, then 92-93. Against Philadelphia it was 93-94 through three, then 91-92 with but one 90 mph fastball in his fifth and final inning.
In his World Series start in Game 4 in 2010, he threw 44 fastballs out of 109 pitches. Of those, none were slower than 91 until the 6th inning. In the 6th, 7th, and 8th, he had one 90 mph fastball in each. So 41 of 44 fastballs in his start in 2010 were faster than his fastest pitch last night.
Fangraphs shows his average fastball this year was 91.1, so if true last night's maximum was slower even than that. And since his 2010 average was only 91.3 during the regular season, perhaps he was a little amped up as a rookie in the playoffs back then.
Sam and I just talked about that on the podcast that's about to be up. Could be a concern, sure, assuming he's more likely to lose the pinpoint command than he is to regain velocity.
He's hurt. If he's not hurt, I predict this "new", weaker, MadBum won't continue to have the success he had last night for long.
In fact, I'd bet he gets pounded if he starts again this series.
He had a huge drop in velocity at the beginning of his rookie season as well and it came back.We'll find out in the spring.
Bumgarner's timing had been off for over a month, and the Giants had Bum make an adjustment by decreasing his upper-body load (twist). The ripple effect made it easier for Bum to repeat and find his release point, but he had less torque than usual.
Interestingly, Bum has relatively low velocity for a guy with such heavy hip-shoulder separation, and his velo was also down before he made the adjustment. He maxed out at 91-mph vs StL and sat 89-90 most of the game, and vs. Cincy he hit 92-mph twice in the first inning but his velo dissipated afterward.
My guess is that Bum is dealing with the physical toll of pitching a long season (at 22 years old), making it more difficult to coordinate his peak mechanics. I wouldn't worry about next year, and he proved that he can survive at 89-90 mph if given another start.
Special thanks to Ian Miller for providing the Krukow quotes to confirm what my eyes were seeing
Bums lower velocity is probably a concern long term but short term it probably helped him, as it made him more of a finesse petty like Zurich and those guys givetigers more trouble than fireballers like sabathia
auto correct on my cellphone really messed up this message, petty = pitcher
Zurich = Zito