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How Conveeeennnn-ient, Dept.

RockiesJeff was talking about our sad timing.  :- )  This one makes up for two or three of 'em earlier in the year.  Aaron Harang's pitch mix on Wednesday, per BrooksBaseball.net:

• 66 fastballs
• 30 sliders
• 3 changeups
• 1 curveball

He didn't need a 95 MPH fastball.  He didn't need a Ryan Dempster slider.  He didn't need hair-fine command - check his strike zone plot:

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What it does take, is to make them get their bats started.  And then to use the slider with changeup action.

Gentlemen, it doesn't take a miracle to get lefties out with fastballs and sliders.  It just takes a convicted pitch sequence.  Give it some thought, wouldja, this presumption that --- > it takes near-impossible levels of precision to use fastballs and sliders.

Aaron Harang isn't a precise guy.  He's just a guy with a sense of danger.

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Aaron Harang - Dr's Prognosis

Eric Wedge, and Carl Willis, and Harang himself, all gave us the same key to the game.  They said that he extended better, got farther out in front, and it gave his pitches more bite.  This is precisely the key that SSI has watched with respect to Hisashi Iwakuma.

Harang mentioned that, his being a real big guy, it only takes a minor technical foulup to get him way off track.  That's true for Jeff Clarke in the world of sports; I can relate.  He says that he's coming up to speed now NOT in terms of arm strength, but in terms of getting his motion into rhythm.

Is that in fact what happened?  Or was this just "noise," that Harang happened to get the bounce of the ball his way, and wrote it off to improvement?

I don't know, but I've thought that Harang has thrown the ball a whale of a lot better than his ERA shows.  SSI is not slow about detonating an MLB(TM) retread :- ) but Harang has been a pleasant surprise.  

His strikeout rate stands at 8+ and his walk rate at 2+.  We don't say that's the gospel truth, but he's thrown the ball pretty well.

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Stat of the Day

The M's have 17 quality starts, tied for #1 in the American League.  They have had oodles and oodles of good games -- with a good fraction of games in which their SP's were mulched like pressboard through a woodchipper.

So lurking behind their ERA+ of 90 is the seed of a very good team pitching staff.  150-150-100-100 is the stuff of parades.  We'll leave the Maurer debate split out for now ... but Saunders and Harang could, conceivably, team with Felix and Iwakuma to provide a championship rotation.  If you've got two legit aces up front, then average-solid IS all you need behind them.

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