Friday night pitchers

Just some thoughts on some of the pitchers I was watching on a busy Friday night of baseball.

Clay Buchholz (Boston Red Sox v. New York Yankees) 6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 3 K

It’s easy to see why he’s such a highly touted prospect and how he’s already got a Major League no-hitter on his resume. His fastball looked to be in the low to mid 90’s for most of his six innings of work which probably seem like 100+ after his changeup and curveball were coming in right around 80 mph. The curveball was buckling some knees and making some Yankees hitters look completely foolish. While he did get a bit wild in the fifth inning – walking Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada before allowing a run scoring double from (red hot) Jose Molina -he was excellent throughout the night and showed more of what Red Sox fans have to look forward to.

Manny Parra (Milwaukee Brewers v. New York Mets) 4 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K

I didn’t see as much of this one but I watched a couple innings from Parra so I could see what this youngster is all about. The first word that came to mind after watching him throw one pitch was “smooth”. He looked really easy getting the ball to the plate, reminding me of Andy Pettitte at times. I didn’t see any of the knee-buckling off-speed stuff that Buchholz was tossing but he did a nice job against a tough Mets lineup. As with most rookies, he would benefit from increasing the percentage of strikes thrown as he was at about 60% (43 of 72) last night.

Chien-Ming Wang (New York Yankees v. Boston Red Sox) 9IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K

It’s tough to fault a pitcher who just threw a complete game two-hitter against a tough Red Sox lineup, but I saw an alarming number of fly balls during Wang’s performance. He started off the first inning by fly ball outs from Coco Crisp and Dustin Pedroia (and then striking out David Ortiz) which is when I first said to myself “he’s not getting his sinker down enough”. Of course, he made it work well enough to complete the game on only 93 pitches so what do I know?

Barry Zito (San Francisco Giants v. St. Louis Cardinals) 6 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

Zito’s going to be haunted by his massive contract until it expires because there just seems to be no possible way he’s ever going to regain the Cy Young form that ended up earning him that contract in the first place. He’s trying to transform himself into a “crafty lefty” a la Jaime Moyer because his fastball just isn’t overpowering enough at this point. He showed through most of Friday night’s game that he is indeed making this transition and was quite effective against all Cardinals not named Pujols. I don’t expect to see many more lines like he had last night and he’ll struggle to get to 10 wins for the eighth straight season with the anemic Giants offense supplying minimal run support.