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Q.  Did Maurer change his pitch selection?

A.  He did, yes, and he changed it radically.  This change was absolutely the key to his success.

In his last start, he was KO'ed by the Houston Astros in the first inning.  There might have been a certain amount of luck involved, but make no mistake:  he got KO'ed, and it took smelling salts to peel him off the canvas.

Here is the pitch-by-pitch breakdown that SSI provided of the carnage.  The strikeout-prone Astros were passive, taking long looks at the ball -- vulnerable to fastballs, but well set up to hit offspeed pitches.  Maurer threw a blizzard of slider-speed pitches, high and away, right onto the barrels of their bats.

You could look it up.

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Q.  What had been SSI's R/X for a pitch selection specific to Brandon Maurer?

A.  Here's the postgame link from 5 days ago.

Dr. D's prescription was that, if Brandon Maurer would do these three things:

• Establish the fastball (make hitters get their bats started earlier)
• Get less of the plate with the slider - throw it to break OFF the plate sometimes
• Go with 2 pitches only, like Ryan Dempster

... then Brandon Maurer would be successful.  It's based on the Ryan Dempster precedent, but it's not just Dempster.  It's that Maurer's slider is a lot better than his curve or change, and it's that Maurer's fastball is one of the best in the American League.

We thought that he had enough command of his fastball (decent) and of his slider (good) to make this template function well in the real-world jungle of MLB(TM) predators.  Our considered opinion was that The Dempster Way was the right way for Brandon.

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Q.  To what extent did Brandon Maurer actually implement those 3 ideas?

A.  Let's start with our suggestion that he use only two pitches.  Here was Brandon's pitch selection on Sunday:

Pitch	# times used
Fastball	54
Slider	38
Other	4

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Q.  Wait, WHAT.  He did NOT.

A.  Read it and weep.  And compare his game-one pitch count against Oakland:

Pitch	# times used
Fastball	32
Slider	23
Curve	10
Changeup	9

So he used a fastball-slider attack -- exactly the one Ryan Dempster uses -- to put down the Rangers.

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Q.  Can you use a fastball-slider attack against a lefty lineup?

A.  Notice the echo of our old Michael Pineda debate on the 2-pitch combo.  Texas has four (4) lefty MOTO hitters.  That doesn't even count Lance Berkman as two hitters....

Dempster uses two pitches against lefties.  People need to think of baseball cliches (sliders vs RHB, changeups vs LHB) as general principles, with specific exceptions, rather than think of them as absolutes.  

Life is not simple.  Precious few principles work as absolutes.  You have to use intuition -- the complex human brain, and its experience -- to match principles to situations better than a computer could.

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

But hey.  Maurer could now mix a few changeups, against LHB, without losing coherency.  Dempster mixes a few forkballs.  Just gotta be careful not to lose the thread on your 2-pitch attack.

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Q.  :shellshocked: What about the other two SSI strategic themes ...

A.  Just briefly ... absolutely Maurer pounded Texas with his 94-95 fastball early.

At 94-95 MPH, a pitcher can make the hitter start his bat early, can make him "cheat," force him to launch his bat "in time" with the release, as opposed to seeing the pitch and then launching.

I mean, you can see the pitch count for yourself ... vs Oakland, 32 fastballs and 42 offspeed.  vs. Texas, well over 50% fastballs.  But just f'r instance, here's Maurer blowing away Adrian Beltre to finish off the first inning:

The two pitches breaking off the plate, those are the two offspeed "sucker" pitches.  The four red pitches on the hands, those are four fastballs, 93-95 MPH.

With a 2-2 count, Beltre STILL didn't respect Maurer's fastball sufficiently.  Maurer reached back, fired a 95 fastball inside, and Beltre was a yard behind it.

Humiliating.  They watch the game from the dugout, you unnerstan'.  After that, the Rangers were careful to be ready for the fastball.

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Q.  The third theme.  Expand the plate with the slider, throw it to break off the plate 50% of the time.

A.  We know you like data, so here are two strike zone charts.  Here is the slider chart from Oakland -- the sliders are in orange.  Notice how they clump within the strike zone, and they clump in the high-away quadrant.

In fact, Maurer had thrown 35 sliders the first two games, 30 for strikes (!!).  (Yesterday it was 38 sliders, 24 strikes.)  What's worse, most of those 30-for-35 strikes were out-and-over.

...........

Now here's the slider chart from yesterday, sliders in orange:

tched the game, you saw Maurer again and again throw the slider in the zone, looking juuuuust like a fastball, and then the slider broke out of the zone.  Very Dempsterish.

That's not to say he lost his ability to throw the slider for a called strike.  Honestly, that's what most of those low-away sliders were, catching Ranger hitters looking FB, and freezing them.

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Q.  What does it mean, that Jesus Montero caught the game?

A.  That Montero's coaches can tell him, before the game, "Establish the fastball first.  Then go off the plate with the slider.  Use just the fastball and slider, and fastball is the primary pitch today."

And Montero can do that -- if you tell him to do it.  The guy is a catcher in the major leagues, right?  So whose responsibility is this, ultimately -- the catcher's, or the coaches'?

Maybe it is less about getting buried in 14 different pregame hot zone charts, and more about giving the catcher a clear, coherent overall game plan that is the right one?

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

... more seriously.  That's a serious stock uptick for Jesus Montero.  Wouldn't you say?

All's well that ends well.  If, after only two games, the M's coaches have figured out a 93-95 MPH Ryan Dempster, it's okay with me.  Back to the conversation about a kickin' #5 starter.

Maurer changes his game plan back, next game, who's in the posse with me.  Dempster it up, dude.  All the way to 15 wins.

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