Daily Archives: April 26, 2006

Worst. Headline. Ever.

Meanwhile, duck and cover tonight folks. The one team Chien-Ming couldn’t solve last year was the D-Rays, against whom he posted a 6.94 ERA across four starts. Aside from one ugly start against the eventual NL Central Champion Cardinals that lasted a mere four innings, his work against the Rays was by far his worst aggregate performance against any single team in his rookie season. Underlining that fact, the Devil Rays were the only team other than the Cardinals to collect more than a hit per inning off of Wang. Distressingly, they were also the team he faced the most last year, as he didn’t face any other single team as many as three times. Sadly, Wang’s performance thus far this year doesn’t suggest that his fortunes are about to change, though the B-squad line-up the Rays are running out there due to injuries to Huff, Lugo, and Cantu (day-to-day with a bruised foot) could help.

All of that said, there’s something curious about Wang’s four starts thus far this season. One would expect him to do poorly on turf as the groundballs he induces are more likely to speed through the infield for hits. Indeed, it would seem that’s partially to blame for his struggles against the Rays last year (though he did just as poorly against them in the Bronx). But Wang’s one dominant outing this year came on the Metrodome turf. That start also saw his lowest single-game groundball-flyball ratio of the year (1.75 compared to a typical 3.14 in his first two starts combined and a staggering 14.00 in his most recent outing), in combination with his highest strikeout total (eight Ks versus five total in his other three outings combined). Perhaps the solution to Wang’s early-season struggles isn’t getting the ball down, but actually getting away from thinking groundball all the time and making more of an effort to go for the strikeout, even if it means going high in the zone to blow one of his mid-90s heaters past a hitter.

For his part, the hard-throwing McClung has been godawful this year save for one solid, but unimpressive outing against the Royals. The Yanks feasted on him last year and he has a 14.00 ERA in nine career innings against the Bombers, all of which suggests that Wang might have some room to experiment tonight.

Bubba Crosby gets his first start of the year tonight, batting ninth and playing center in place of DH Johnny Damon. Encouragingly, Bernie continues to ride pine. For the Rays, Crawford is expected back tonight, Cantu remains questionable, and Edwin Jackson has already been send down in favor of tomorrow’s starter Mark Hendrickson.

Last week, Buster Olney wrote about how Mike Mussina has been making like Greg Maddux and throwing his soft stuff even slower. Today, Tom Verducci gives us more insight into why Moose has been so successful this spring:

“I threw in an intrasquad game in spring training,” Mussina said. “People were like, ‘Why are you pitching in an intrasquad game?’ Really, the only reason why I did was that you back everything up from the start of the season, counting five days between starts, and five days before my first spring training start happened to be a day when we had an intrasquad game.

“So I’m pitching in this intrasquad game and [Jorge] Posada is up. The count is 3 and 2 and I throw a changeup. Now for some reason, Posada is right on the pitch and he smokes it. Hits it on a line. We got him out, but I was surprised that he would be right on a 3-and-2 change.

“So after the game I asked him, ‘How could you be right on that changeup I threw you?’ He said, ‘I saw your fingers on top of the ball as it was coming out of your hand. I could tell it was a changeup.'”

What Posada saw were Mussina’s index, middle and ring fingers splayed across the top of the baseball, a grip that makes it impossible for a pitcher to throw anything but an off-speed pitch. (Only two fingers, the index and middle, top the ball for a fastball.) Posada saw the dead giveaway, kept his hands and weight back and timed the changeup perfectly.

Mussina is 37 years old and has been pitching in the major leagues since 1991. No one had ever told him what Posada told him. So Mussina decided to change his grip. He slid his index finger more to the side of the ball than the top of the ball — not quite the grip for a circle changeup, in which the thumb and index finger form a circle on the side of the ball, but a modified version of it.

The pitch worked perfectly. Not only was Mussina able to disguise the pitch, but he also was able to throw it slower and generate better downward movement on it. “It doesn’t so much run,” Mussina said, referring to the sideways motion some pitchers get from their changeup, “but it just kind of dies at the end. It tumbles under the hitter’s bat. And to think if I didn’t bother pitching in an intrasquad game, none of this would have happened.”

A few years ago, I did a pre-season Q&A with a bunch of sportswriters. One of the questions I posed was whether Mussina would finally win 20 games that season. Most thought he’d be a lock for at least 15. We’ve seen Mussina break down with injuries for the past two years, and so the old “Will he win 20?” was not exactly the first question many Yankee fans had on their mind when considering Mussina in 2006. But wouldn’t it be wunnerful if he did win 20 this year?

I know, it’s a jinx to mention it, but screw it, Mussina has enough bad luck on his own–I’m not going to be the one that puts the whammy on him. Regardless, I hope he gets at least 15 and has a terrific year. It’s been cool reading the comments section lately and seeing how many fans he has out there. Cliff and I have always been big supporters. Should be interesting to see how he fares against the Jays this weekend, as they get their second look at him. Friday night, which pits the Big Unit v. Roy Halladay could be something special too.