Q.  Another lockdown by Fister.  A step forward for him?

A.  A step backward, kind of.

Fister reverted to his 2010 game in one sense:  he threw 70% plus fastballs, had ineffective offspeed stuff, and relied on command all day.

He threw 81 of 108 pitches at 86-92 mph.  That isn't going to get strikeouts.  He had only 2 strikeouts, only 4 swings and misses.  That's Fister 2010.

Fastballs first time through, mix in a very occasional offspeed pitch in trips 2 and 3?  You're not going to see that more classically demonstrated than this:

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Q.  That doesn't mean that he's abandoning the curve and change permanently?

A.  Dr. D was a bit dismayed to hear Fister praising Gimenez to the skies "we were on the same page all day; I rarely shook him off"... c'mon, the change and curve were what gave Fister those 6-7 strikeouts, and were what made him a TOR starter.

No, we'll assume that it was a single-game adaptation.  Which would be fine.  Whatever works that day.

...........

But even the Basic Fister v1.0 is a guy with picture-perfect mechanics, 70 "plus-plus" command, and today you got a look at just how good a weapon his fastball is.

Fister locked down the LA Angels with nothing other than a downhill, perfectly-placed fastball.

Remember that Van Damme movie where the Thai fighter announced in each round whether he'd be hitting him with his elbows, knees, or whatever, and just pwned the enemy any way he wanted to?

l">their 75 ERA+ starters the next three games.

ROOT put FIP on the screen today and Krueger said, "whatever FIP is."  :- )  It's an attempt to estimate "what ERA should have been" if fielding were average behind the pitcher.

Here are the best AL pitchers sorted by FIP.  McCarthy and Masterson are flukes; the two Angels and two Mariners are not.

Weaver and Haren have been absolutely carrying the Angels.  They drew two games with us, and here was their big chance to gain a couple games against our #4-5 starters.

Instead, they went 0-2.  The only thing that could hurt any worse would be to lose a game on a walk-off sun ball.

Y'all rodent Angels may Slink Away,

Dr D

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