Collette Calls: Opening Weekend Pitching Observations

Given my column typically publishes on Monday nights, the direction of my advice is more of a look ahead rather than attempting to influence your FAAB decisions. The staff does a great job with their FAAB pieces over the weekend; I know because I consume them myself before completing my FAAB activities each Sunday. 

It feels great to say I've consumed a high volume of baseball the past few days. I watched most of both Thursday night games, pieces of multiple games live Friday, and did not do much of anything Saturday other than watch baseball around a few errands. At least this phase of my summer life is returning to normal. I jotted down some observations while watching games as well as highlights after perusing the pitching box scores.

Nick Anderson - The Rays were up 1-0 on the Jays at the start of the seventh inning. Peter Fairbanks opened the inning and got Teoscar Hernandez looking on strike three. He then hung a slider to Reese McGuire, which the catcher promptly hit into the stands in right field. That pitch got Nick Anderson up in the pen, and promptly in the game once Fairbanks allowed two of the next three runners to reach base. Anderson threw one pitch to save the inning, and remained in the game to work the eighth. The Rays took the lead in the bottom of the frame, but it was Oliver Drake who earned the first save of the season in Tampa Bay.

I have said all offseason that the situation, rather than the ninth inning, will dictate who closes in Tampa Bay. It is worth reminding readers 11 pitchers earned a save last season for the Rays, none of whom was Nick Anderson. Anderson likely will get his at some point, but manager Kevin Cash knows he has one of the better relievers in the game and is not going to let the inning dictate when he uses the weapon. Anderson saved that game by retiring four of the five hitters in the heart of the Toronto lineup, even if Drake walked away with the save on the books by going 1-2-3 in the ninth against the 8-9-1 hitters. 

By the way, Drake was in there with lefties McGuire and Panik as the first two guys up because Drake has excellent numbers against lefties. Jose Alvarado had pitched the day before, and the only other good weapon against lefties was Aaron Loup. This is a situation where the three-batter rule comes into play, because had either lefty reached, Loup would have had to face Bo Bichette with a man on base. Sure, it was a three-run lead, but the Jays lineup was stacked with righties after Bichette, so Loup would have been a sub-optimal use. It bears repeating; the situation in late innings will dictate the saves in Tampa Bay.

Matt Shoemaker - Shoemaker looked good. Seriously, go watch the highlights. Shoemaker has pitched so infrequently the last few seasons, we forget how good he can look when things are working. The last few seasons, he has taken a batted ball off his head, blown out his knee, and dealt with a forearm strain, which has limited his ability to string starts together. However, over his last 12 starts — albeit from September 2018 until this past weekend — he has some impressive numbers:

• .203 opponents' average
• 1.02 WHIP
• 3.00 ERA (3.51 FIP)
• 17.0 K-BB%
• 13.0 SwSTR%
• 68 percent first-pitch  strikes

Shoemaker doesn't light up radar guns, but has to throw the occasional four-seamer up to accentuate his splitter. We normally think of the splitter as a pitch to bury in the zone, yet Shoemaker will both bury it in the zone as well as drop it in the zone to steal strikes. He threw 81 pitches, but only 33 were fastballs. 16 pitches were put into play, 8 were swung and missed at, and he got 19 called strikes in the outing.

He did an outstanding job of keeping Tampa Bay hitters off balance throwing a heavy mix of non-fastballs to a team which prefers to hunt for fastballs. You'll recall Masahiro Tanaka using a similar approach against the club last year, until the Rays finally got to him late in the season. 

Dylan Bundy - Dylan Bundy looks different. Bundy's fastball with Baltimore saw a velocity decline from 93.8 in 2016 to 91.2 last season. His utilization of the pitch did decrease year after year, but those watching him have called for him to throw it even less. The league hit .335 off Bundy's four-seamer last season and .303 the season before. He has allowed 37 homers off that pitch over the past two seasons pitching in a tough division and an even tougher home ballpark. He was begging for a relocation, and Anaheim mighht be the magic he needs.

The new location and new instruction led to a new guy on Saturday as just 31 of Bundy's 90 pitches were four-seamers while he threw 50 non-fastballs. He got zero swinging strikes on his fastball (not shocking), but did get 10 called strikes with his fastballs to go with 11 swings and misses and 13 called strikes from his non-fastballs. By Game Score, Bundy had a 71, which he did all of one time in the 2019 season. Bundy has had just one outing since 2017 where he had a higher percentage of called and swinging strikes of his total pitches in an outing:

• 8/23/17 - 43%
• 7/25/20 - 37%
• 4/5/17 - 36%
• 4/4/18 - 36%
• 4/11/19 - 36

This was against a good Oakland lineup as well, so Bundy Believers should be excited if he can continue to pitch in this style. 

Corbin Burnes/Freddy Peralta - Inefficient. Neither pitcher was able to complete four innings with Burnes going 75 pitches and Peralta going 66 pitches. Both struggled with command while showing flashes of what they're capable of. I am heavily invested in both pitchers across my rosters, but my interest in them drops precipitously if they do not get used behind openers. Burnes was more appealing with 26 called strikes and whiffs in 75 pitches, but 23 fastballs resulted in no swinging strikes, and only 11 in the strike zone overall. 

Peralta was disappointing as the new slider made no appearance. He was all fastball and curveball; the fastball got 14 called or swinging strikes out of 42, but the curveball got just six of 24 strikes. He is normally an elevated pitcher, but he was both elevated and wild on the day.

I'm willing to give Burnes a longer leash here, but Peralta may be cutsville if his next outing is more of the same. 

Edwin Diaz - Diaz is fine. Yes, I know he blew the save on Saturday, but look at the pitch Ozuna hit out. It is not like Diaz left something hanging out over the plate. He hit a full-count fastball off the plate out the other way because Ozuna is a strong man. 

If you want to fault Diaz for anything, it should be even pitching to Ozuna. He fell behind 3-0, threw that same 3-2 pitch to get strike one before a beautiful 3-1 slider brought the count full. The first pitch of the at bat was an elevated fastball over the middle while every other pitch in that sequence was on the outer edge of the zone. Ozuna had no fear of anything inside because he had seen nothing inside that entire at bat. I would have loved to see Diaz throw a front-door slider there or that same fastball in on the hands. Even if he walks him, he faces an inferior hitter in Adam Duvall. The key points for Diaz is the velocity is there and the slider is still nasty. Diaz has a 32 percent called + swinging strike rate, which is higher than the likes of Chris Paddack and Shane Bieber this weekend. 

Dinelson Lamet - Lamet was cooking with gas. Lamet threw 80 pitches over five innings, and was working in the upper 90s throughout a good portion of it before he tired late.

Lamet still has nothing off-speed, but the hard fastball and slider was enough to keep the Diamondbacks at bay. Lamet did tire at the end, and ended up facing 21 batters. Ideally, that is Lamet's limit in an outing as his repertoire is not conducive to a guy that can live long the third time through the order, but he got away with it this time. If Lamet is tiring around 65-70 pitches, manager Jayce Tingler may use an opener for him to allow him to work an inning deeper into the contest. 

Robbie Ray - Ray looks different, but the same. Ray has the new shorter arm swing, and has an extra two miles an hour velocity as well as I saw him dot 97. The issue I saw with Ray was 55 of 97 pitches were fastballs, and he had just five of those generate swings and misses. The crazy part how he fell apart in the fourth inning and could not locate his pitches well. He had a rather uneventful first three inning with six strikeouts through three innings. He then walked Tommy Pham to lead off the fourth inning, who then stole second base after Jurickson Profar popped out. Ray then allowed a since to France before missing badly with a 2-2 pitch which Wil Myers hit into the left field seats. Edward Olivares immediately followed that up with a rocket double down the line, before Austin Hedges struck out and Trent Grisham walked. 

The Grisham walk ended the night for Ray, who ended up throwing 39 pitches to get two outs in the fourth. Inefficient outings are not new for Ray, but that final inning of work looked very much of his own doing as he was upset about walking Pham and the inning pretty much fell apart from there. This was not a stuff issue as much as it was a inning where he simply lost his command and could not get it back.