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Q. What is the usual "script" for Erasmo Ramirez?
A. He paints with the fastball and uses two "plus" offspeed pitches to draw swinging strike threes.
That sounds cliche, but the healthy Erasmo Ramirez walked a mere 1.83 batters per nine innings in 2012. He's got Rob-O-Tronic mechanics, simply Madduxian down the centerline, and his command (then) was truly elite.
He's one of a very few pitchers who can walk 2 men per game, and yet draw 7+ strikeouts (Doug Fister, Cliff Lee, Adam Wainwright, Hisashi Iwakuma, now David Price). In 2012, he scored an 11.3% swinging strike rate -- compare Clayton Kershaw last year at 11.4%. At his best, he's actually one of the 10-20 top swing-and-miss guys in baseball.
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Q. Did Tuesday night's game follow this script?
A. Not at all. He had his "B" game out there, had all kinds of problems hitting his spots, missing lots of pitches wildly off the plate ...
He wound up with a 67% strike ratio, which is sky high. But as you can clearly see, a lot of that was because the Angels were going after sucker pitches and fouling them off. The strike ratio doesn't do justice to how much he labored.
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Q. He labored?
A. Blowers pointed out, on TV, that Erasmo has a tendency to go deer-in-headlights when things start going South on him. Sure enough, in the 4th inning, Josh Hamilton took this painted fastball down the 3B line for a double:
bility to use his tremendous changeup to bail himself out when in trouble.
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Q. Leaving him where?
A. He's an unusually talented young RHP with a medium amount of "makeup" issues.
Not so many young pitchers can fan > 7 batters and walk
Fortunately, the M's got Felix and Iwakuma up front. Stars & Scrubs, baby.
Enjoy,
Dr D
Dead on as always Jeff. ER had reason to look down after the Miller boot and he didn't. Solid game on the road. Plus....Joe B never threw a pitch. MLB was very slow at times but a pick off? Long walk back to the dugout! Very good game in all aspects!
2. Erasmo: I looooove the little runt. Doc, you will remember that he took a bunch of heat from the Skip in ST for not burying enough pitches when ahead in the count. I wonder if his "wildness" last night was a result of him trying to not grab too much of the zone?
3. Lefty Heat coming up tonight. The gun hits 97 on at least one heater tonight. Wanna' bet?
4. A 6'10 guy who bamboozles guys with puff balls and has the slowest move to the plate in the history of the game. Well, you know what I mean.
5. The Cuban Kid, with Havana huevos larger than the Bay of Pigs!
In the wings: 'Kuma and Gooden...er Taijuan.
I'm betting that, unfortunately our 6'10 Ichabod stays for only 45 days. I hope we can keep him. But we're WAY deep on the mound. I mean, would anybody panic right now if 'Kuma were to miss two months? Didn't think so.
moe
That is exactly right, Mo'. Ramirez now "gets it" that he has to pitch like Jamie Moyer or Greg Maddux - cannot afford to leave even one pitch on a tee, or it will ruin the game. Very savvy comment.
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The next stage for him -- after sense of danger -- will be to improve his sense of pitchability. He threw good pitches to Hamilton and Ibanez in the 4th, but they were pitches that Hamilton and Ibanez were sitting on. A Jamie Moyer had an ability to cross up the hitter, which Ramirez does not have. (He throws the change in classic counts; he's not outsmarting people as such.)
McClendon spoke to precisely this point. I'm more impressed with the man every day.
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You're on a roll your ownself there Mo' :- )
And I wish you'd post at least once every day, even if just a short paragraph. Love eeeeet.
I've pointed this out elsewhere before, but Erasmo Ramirez is a Roy Oswalt in the making.
Their career minor league numbers:
Erasmo-
IP: 586.2
ERA: 3.16
WHIP: 1.152
BB/9: 1.6
SO/9: 7.2
Oswalt-
IP: 596.0
ERA: 3.13
WHIP: 1.169
BB/9: 2.5
SO/9: 8.8
That's in approximately 3 full seasons worth of minor league innings, not exactly SSS, as they say. Erasmo walks fewer people and Oswalt struck out more, but pretty equal in their effectiveness. In the minors, at least. We'll see.