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

Sez Tacoma Rain ...

Time for another chapter on E-Ram?  Those wicked rivals really know how to expose our weaknesses...

Sez Dr. D, on arriving at the CPX this afternoon...

Especially the sinister San Diego Padres.  Actually I have the afternoon off here and was going to FF through the game, try to figure out what happened.

Heard on the radio that Erasmo fanned the first guy, had the second guy desperately fouling pitches back to the screen and off the 3B dugout ... saw a few pitches over my shoulder in a restaurant ... then checked the box after the game and he's given up 6 ER to the Padres.

Gonna go take a look....

=== Siiiiggghhhhhhhh ====

Turns out that the pre-video-session glance at Brooks Baseball was all we needed.

1. Wayyyy too many fastballs (70/93) ...
2. Wayyyy too many strikes (64/93) ...
3. Too many centered pitches (check the strike zone scatterchart; look at all the 3's and 4's right down the heart).

Thought he was Curt Schilling or Bartolo Colon.  Turned out he was wrong.  To pitch like them your mistakes have to be near zero.  Erasmo's mistakes weren't near zero; they might not have been near twenty.  The eye does not contradict the F/X data:  when I did catch a few pitches on the restaurant TV, Montero's glove was moving two feet away from its target time and again.  

Erasmo just didn't have his A command, the razor-sharp command that might have let him get away with the nonstop blizzard of fastballs, every one of which was thrown intending a strike.

Pitchability score = minus infinity.  Padres hitters had no decisions to make, as to whether to swing.  The ball was there practically every time.  It would be one thing if you were hitting your spots.

.

=== Expand the Zone, Kid ===

Erasmo has the mechanics and track record to pitch with plus command, which he did not have Thursday.   He'll learn how to expand the strike zone.  Remember Pineda last March?  

Friend of ours, Lindy McDaniel, went over his approach with us and according to Lindy, ALL good pitching strategy is based on expanding the strike zone.  (1) Hit the black on strike one, and then (2) force the hitter to defend a huge zone when behind in the count.  On TV you'll usually hear about "getting to your putaway pitch" with two strikes; this is Brandon League's simple approach.  Actually the hitter's job is much tougher when he's "in between" based on seeing the pitch come in 4 inches off the plate (or IS it?! betterdecidequickwhoopscalledstrikethreechone)....

I dunno about ALL strategy being based on expanding the strike zone, but I do know that you can't shrink it to the size of a license plate and then throw 10 straight fastballs through it.

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

A Kevin Millwood or Jeff Suppan, coming out and finding that he can't hit his targets, realizing that he didn't have his A game, would grovel for a few outs.  A slider here, a changeup there, a fastball and keep the ball low...  it's one thing to take batters up the ladder if you've got your A game going.

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

His 92.9 MPH average fastball velocity would have been #16 in both major leagues last year, and you'll notice verrrrrrry few pitchers who threw harder, who have his kind of command.  His changeup has great movement, too, dropping considerably more than the average ML changeup.

Erasmo has the weapons; on Thursday he pitched like an imbecile, notifying the Padres to get comfortable timing at 93 MPH, and then challenging them right down the middle.  Takes more brains than that to beat big leaguers there, my friend.

Side note:  no gold star for Montero in this game.  If your starter doesn't have his command, you better mix the pitches and give him a chance... one batterymate was as brainless as the other.

My $0.02,

Dr D