Q.  How did Doogie get his strikeouts?

A.  He had a 5/1 control ratio on Thursday night, which makes it 13/2 over the last three starts, 19 innings.

That's 6+ strikeouts with the 0+ walks.  Short term.   But there you go:  three ML games with the PCL stats.  Now y'know what it looked like.

............

1.  LH DeJesus went to 1-2 on three fastballs, and then Fister blew him away with a sick curve that dove into the dirt.

.............

2.  LH Maier went to 2-2 on four fastballs, and then took a Catfish Hunter FB right on the black for a called strike three.  (The pitchtracker was wrong on this one.)

..............

3.  LH Anderson's strikeout was epic:   (a) takes a fastball at the knees.  (b) Fishes for a fastball waist-high but... 6 inches outside.  (c) on 0-2, gets a FB right on the hands, inside edge of the plate, called strike three.   Played him like a violin.

.............

4.  Lumbering RH Butler gets ahead 2-0, but then takes two changeups LOL for a 2-2 count... a changeup comes in on the outside corner.  Late and lamely, Butler fishes for strike three.

............

5.  LH Jacobs sees .... change, FB, FB, change for 2-2... now what?  Change, two inches low and two inches outside, foul tip hung onto by Joh.

.....................

Five strikeouts:  fish for a curve, flail at a low-away change, swing through a high-away change, freeze on two Catfish fastballs just off the plate.

It's one thing to trick guys into strike threes for a while until they catch up to you.  But each of the Royals' five strikeouts on Thursday, it's hard to suggest what the adjustment would be.  

You're going to swing at every gray-area 88 fastball, while trying to defend against a changeup first?  Or you're going to let the fastball go by so that you can defend against a Moyer-class changeup?

Like they say, you can't defend against 9 sectors of the strike zone, times 3 pitch depths.   Fister had a 4/0 ratio against the Yankees, and a 4/0 against the Indians, and a 5/1 against the Royals -- he fanned more lefties than righties.

If Doogie gets 5-6 legit blow-em-away K's like this, with the 0-1 walks, for about two or three more games, I'm going to get really excited.  

If I didn't know better, I'd say this lad can put ML hitters away.   In combination with 0+ walks, the hitters would be left with swinging for two homers a game. 

.

Q.  So the putaway pitch is what?

A.  As with his template-sensei, the far superior Greg Maddux, any pitch can be a legit strikeout weapon.

Usually the FB is strike three when it's called by the ump.  The change is typically swung through, with the batter ahead of a pitch that may be off the plate.  The curve can be swung on and missed whether inside or outside the zone.

Same as Mad Dog exemplified.

.

Q.  So the Achilles' Heel, for a 5k, 1bb guy, is homers.  Will he give up enough to run him out of the league?

A.   It could happen.  It *did* happen, to Ryan Franklin, in the AL -- not to run him out of the league, but enough so to render him unappealing as a starter.

Franklin, like Doogie, threw a blizzard of strikes, at different pitch depths, but AL hitters started guessing right ... more often than Franklin would have liked.

Which is should be kept in perspective.  Ryan Franklin has been a quality major league pitcher.   He's got a 107 ERA+. 

There are worse things than pitchers who make the other guys beat them, right?   Isn't that exactly the kind of guy you want in Safeco, the kind of guy who puts the burden of proof on the batter?

.

Cheers,

Dr D