If it feels like we’ve been talking a lot about Clay Buchholz lately, that’s probably because we have—and for good reason. While Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, John Lackey, Daisuke Matsuzaka appear to have gotten back on track after struggling through their first two turns (or in case of Beckett, only his first turn) through the rotation, Buchholz has continued to struggle. Not surprisingly, the fans and media have already started to jump on the “Clay Buchholz head case bandwagon,” which I find amusing, frustrating, and completely ridiculous. Let’s try to be rational here for a second. Is it possible that his supposed mental demons have returned? Yeah, sure. I guess. Anything is possible, but is it the most likely reason for his struggles? No. There multiple pitching related reasons for his struggles that aren’t directly related to his psyche or concentration. Among those reasons are a noticeable decline in velocity, poor location, and a mysterious reclassification of his deadly slider into an impotent cutter.
While Buchholz’s velocity decline is a bit of a concern, it’s probably a little too early to begin worrying about it. As Charlie mentioned yesterday, most pitchers regain their velocity over their first handful of starts, so it’s probably a little unfair to compare his 94.0 MPH average fastball velocity from 2010 to his 92.0 MPH average velocity through April. Still, it’s worth noting that his average fastball velocity through April 30, 2010 was 93.8 MPH. It’s probably something worth monitoring throughout the season as it could be an indicator of injury or mechanical issues.
All of that aside, rather than rehashing the great work Charlie, Troy, and Darryl have done, I’d rather focus on Buchholz’s start last night in Baltimore. It’s pretty safe to say that most of us would consider his start to have been little frustrating. He pitched in and out of trouble most of the night, worked out of jams, put together only one 1-2-3 inning (only his third such inning all season), and essentially got BABIP’ed to death by giving up 12 hits through 6-2/3. It wasn’t pretty, but considering he only gave up four runs, it could’ve been a lot worse.
Despite his rocky performance, Buchholz exhibited a number of positive characteristics as well. For starters, Buchholz’s plus change-up was really working. According to Brooks Baseball, he threw the pitch 28 times, 20 for strikes, and induced 9 whiffs. While there were times he seemed to rely upon his change a little too frequently (i.e. Luke Scott‘s PA during the third inning), it was an incredibly effective weapon/out pitch that kept Oriole hitters off balance.
Buchholz also had excellent command of his 12-6 curveball, which certainly helped counter balance his ineffective four-seam fastball and cutter. While he didn’t throw it nearly as frequently as the change-up, he threw it for strikes (11 strikes in 12 pitches), and induced a pair of whiffs as a result. His curve had a good, sharp downward break, but still caught enough of the zone to be called a strike. There were a couple of occasions where he hung a curve a little too far over the middle of the plate, but those were either taken for a strike or fouled off. Overall (per Brooks Baseball), his curveball could easily be considered his most effective pitching of the night, carrying a linear weight of -0.8634.*
* For those who aren’t used to using linear weights for pitches, negative values are actually good.
Another area in which Buchholz excelled last night was in the category of control. Through his first four starts, Buchholz walked 14 batters in 20-1/3 innings. Last night, he only walked two over 6-2/3 innings, one of which was intentional. Considering the number of hits he’d given up, this was certainly a welcome development as it allowed him to not only limit the damage, but also work deeper into the game. Still, it’s not clear if his improved control was a result of a conscious effort to attack the strike zone, or a function of facing a lineup that entered the game with a brutal .287 OBP and a BB% hovering around 6%. Considering the aggressive manner in which the Orioles attacked Buchholz last night (especially his four-seamer), I’m going to assume the latter was a bigger factor than the former. It will be interesting to see how he performs during his next start against the walk-o-phobic Mariners on Sunday. Will he continue to have the same success in terms of walk aversion, or will he revert back to his penchant for nibbling?
So where did Buchholz falter? For starters, his four seam fastball was incredibly ineffective last night, and registered a linear weight value of +1.4621. (Remember, negative is good and positive is bad.) While he threw the pitch for strikes 66% of the time, he had a tendency to leave the ball up and over the plate. Not surprisingly, this resulted in him giving up multiple singles an a double. Looking forward to future starts, he’s going to have to improve his fastball command and rediscover his ability to locate it lower in the zone. This was one of the secrets to his success in 2010.
His cutter isn’t cutting it–no pun intended. As I mentioned to Troy and Charlie in an email last week, it’s almost as if he’s still throwing the slider, but not quite getting the horizontal and vertical breaks he was seeing during both the 2010 season and his first two starts of this season. As a result, it’s not only being misclassified, but also lacking the dramatic late movement that allowed him to induce so many ground balls last season. Instead of tailing into the hands of left handed batters, his “cutter” is crossing the heart of the plate a little too frequently; thus resulting in higher quality contact by the opposition. Furthermore, his cutter is coaxing far fewer whiffs than his slider. Going back to last season (through his second start this year), his slider induced whiffs at a rate of 10.8%. His cutter, on the other hand, while maintaining a similar swing rate (~50%), is inducing whiffs only 2.3% of the time. As he misses fewer bats, he’s allowing greater levels of contact; therefore, greater number of batted balls are falling into play. This was certainly true last night as seven of the 14 cutters he threw were either fouled off or put into play (no whiffs). These kinds of outcomes will continue to occur until Buchholz starts borring the cutter (or slider, assuming it’s the same pitch) in a little more to left handed batters.
While Clay’s start was a bit mixed bag, there are reasons to be positive about his performance. He had had a great curve ball, a true out pitch in his change-up, and threw strikes. If he can regain command of his fastball low in the zone, and rediscover the hard boring break on his slider to neutralize left-handed batters, he should return to being the up-and-coming potential ace we all saw last season. Until that happens, he could be in for a bumpy ride.