Daisuke Matsuzaka: 5 IP, 8 BB, 2 H

The disgusting line of 5 IP, 8 BB, 2 H has only been accomplished four other times in major league history…

Randy Johnson, 05-18-1997
Stan Williams, 06-29-1962
Darren Dreifort, 04-07-2000
William Van Landingham, 06-15-1997

Surprisingly, the worst anyone faired was Randy Johnson with 4 earned runs allowed. Williams allowed 3 ER, Dreifort 2 ER, with Van Landingham and Matsuzaka 1 ER each.

Red Sox Starting Pitching

Below is a graph of the Pure Quality Starts log for the Red Sox 5 main starting pitchers — Beckett, Matsuzaka, Buchholz, Lester and Wakefield.  As you can see, the starts have been really awesome of late, it’s only too bad that some of the starts came during a really rough stretch for the Sox hitters.

Here is how PSQ works:

How is PQS different? The old Quality Start method — minimum 6 IP, maximum 3 earned runs - is overly simplistic and does not measure any real skill. Bill James’ Game Score methodology is better, but is not feasible for quick calculation.

In PQS, we give a starting pitcher credit for exhibiting certain skills in each of his starts. Then by tracking his “PQS Score” over time, we can follow his progress. Here are the criteria…

1. The pitcher must have gone a minimum of 6 innings. This measures stamina. For a 6 IP performance, the pitcher gets 1 point. If he goes less than 5 innings, he automatically gets a total PQS score of zero, no matter what other stats he posted.

2. He must have allowed no more than an equal number of hits to the number of innings pitched. This measures hit prevention and earns him 1 point.

3. His number of strikeouts must be no fewer than two less than his innings pitched (IP minus K must be 2 or less). This measures dominance and earns him 1 point.

4. He must have struck out at least twice as many batters as he walked. This measures command and earns him 1 point.

5. He must have allowed no more than one home run. This measures his ability to keep the ball in the park and earns him 1 point.

5 and 4 points are DOMINANT starts, 3 and 2 points are AVERAGE starts, 1 and 0 points are DISASTER starts.

Pitch f/x Data of Justin Masterson’s Insane Sinker

6 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 4 K

Here is the Pitch f/x data from Justin Masterson’s great major league debut this afternoon. He basically threw 4 pitches, a slider, a few change-ups, a regular sinker, and then some variation that resulted in an insane sinker.

The “regular” sinker is in the green circle (circle change movement), while the super sinker is the cluster with even more run in on right handed batters with negative vertical break.

Masterson mixed speeds well and generally worked in the lower half of the strike zone. Mike Napoli hit a home run to RCF on a slider that was aided by a gusting wind (still a bomb). Masterson will return to the minors, but there is a good chance that he is a key member of the bullpen at some point this summer. The Red Sox will give him every opportunity to continue to start in the future.

Top Prospect Justin Masterson to Make Red Sox Debut Tomorrow

The Red Sox #4 prospect Justin Masterson will be making his major league debut tomorrow afternoon at Fenway Park according to The Portland Press Herald.

Masterson throws one of the most devastating sinkers in professional baseball.

In 19 innings in AA this year he’s struck out 23 while walking 5.  His ERA is a minuscule 0.95.

He sports a freakish 3.57 ground outs to air outs ratio.

Good First Outing for Clay Buchholz (pitch f/x)

5 IP, 6 H, 2 BB, 7 K, 0 HR

Mixing up his fastball, curve, change-up and slider, Clay Buchholz got off to a good start in 2008 even though the defense (Sean Casey at 1b, Manny Ramirez in LF) failed him.

Clay’s fastball was sitting 93-95, curve 75-77, change-up 76-80, and slider 82-85. All with good control as he threw 64% strikes.

Also encouraging was the way he was mixing up his pitches, something that we need to watch with Jason Varitek. Buchholz, like Daisuke Matsuzaka, should really be “pitching backwards” by setting up their fastballs with off-speed stuff.

One fun thing to look at with Buchholz is the movement of his devastating change-up. It falls into the aqua circle, which usually indicates a cutter, because it doesn’t have the classic tailing movement, it just drops straight off the table.

Please excuse my photoshop-shrunken graphs; I need to resize them in Excel to eventually fit in the blog posts.

And That is Why Sports are Great

You wake up at 5am to watch the pregame show, the first pitch of your team’s 2008 season is at 6am and they are playing in Japan. A few hours later, it’s not Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, or Jonathan Papelbon on the front of ESPN.com, it’s literally the last guy on the roster. Brandon Moss gets the start in right field because of JD Drew’s back stiffness, drives in a run early in the game, then ties the game in the 9th with his first major league homer. Incredible.

It was a fun way to start the season, even though Daisuke looked shaky in the first two innings, Snyder sucked, and Papelbon allowed four men to reach in the bottom of the 10th. Manny’s drive for 150 RBI and a new contract got off to a good start with 4 RBI and the game winning hit. The guy is locked in, has inner peace and is even talkative with the media. Amazing.

Now all we have to do is wake up early again tomorrow, hope Jon Lester throws first pitch strikes, and hope the jet lag is easier to deal with being 2-0 on the season.

Jon Lester Dominates Mets for 4 Innings

Just watched Jon Lester’s outing on MLB TV. Wow. He looked good.

He was getting first pitch strikes, spotting his pitches well and getting his bendy curve over for called strikes.  His slider was the dominate pitch of the day, burying it down and under the hands of righties.

His only walk was given up to Jose Reyes on a 3-2 pitch after a long battle.  His control today was definitely a good sign.

Final line: 4.0 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 5 K, 1 BB

Sources Say Bartolo Colon Signs with Red Sox

Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com is reporting that the Red Sox and Bartolo Colon have agreed to a minor league deal. No word yet on the money, or if he has an opt-out clause (he probably will).

All winter long there was not that much positive news coming out of the Dominican Winter League about Colon, he was getting lit up and only throwing 88-91. However, coming off his rotator cuff injury, among other ailments, I suppose just the fact he was throwing was a positive. Velocity is not my major concern here, I am more interested in seeing if he still command, if he does he can still get outs.

This move does two things; it allows the Red Sox to start Clay Buchholz in Pawtucket for a month or two to limit his innings and make it so that he does not have the service time to reach free agency a year sooner than we would like. However, that is unlikly and would only happen if Colon came into camp throwing amazingly. It also guards against injury in the early part of the season since Colon will likely open up with the PawSox.

Like I said earlier, I imagine that Colon has an opt-out in his contract. Something like if he is not in the majors by May 15th he can become a free agent. All-in-all, this deal does not have any downside and provides some nice insurance (however, it would have been nice to get our hands on him a half decade ago or so).

EDIT, Feb 25: There is an opt-out clause in his contract, however Theo Epstein will not reveal the date.

With Schilling Injured, do Blanton and Baker become Trade Targets?

While the news about Curt Schilling’s injured shoulder is troubling, especially if we cannot get his contract voided, it does make me wonder if Theo Epstein will look to trade for another arm.

There are two names I am interested in right now that are “reasonable” trade targets, Joe Blanton of the Oakland A’s and Scott Baker of the Minnesota Twins.

Blanton is a workhorse of a pitcher who doesn’t have dominating strikeout rates, but took a major leap forward last season with his control. That said, is the new-found control for real? In 2005 and 2006 he was a 1.75 K/BB pitcher, which is not all the impressive, however last season that number jumped to an elite 3.50 K/BB. You have to assume he will settle somewhere in the middle and end up a really good middle of the rotation pitcher who will eat a lot of innings. The problem is Billy Beane, the A’s GM, is going to ask for a package of top prospects (he will not want Coco Crisp, so don’t ask) in return and that is not going to happen if you ask me.

Baker is an interesting pitcher; he is a control artist who has dominated in the minor leagues and finally had some major league success last year. There were also some musings around that the Red Sox have previously inquired about his availability. The Twins, as we know, are looking for a stopgap centerfielder who can give Carlos Gomes time to mature as a player in the minor leagues. Crisp might be in play here, and if we include cash and another prospect that the Twins showed interest in during Santana discussions we might have something.

Of course, it would be nice to know what the actual issue with Schilling is, and until we do, or see that Theo has made a trade, this is all just crazy Red Sox speculation.