NLDS Game 1 - Power Yields to Finesse

by Harry Pavlidis on Oct 7, 2009 6:22 PM EDT in Pitch f/x Goodies Comment 5 comments

Cliff Lee's post-season debut turned into a complete game gem. Losing a shutout in the 9th was not completely Lee's fault, but, as it goes with baseball, your success as a pitcher isn't your own, either. Lee's finesse game matched-up against Ubaldo Jimenez and his power game, and came out ahead. While the game started as a pitcher's dual, the Phillies blew it open

Age and handedness aside, there is one stark difference from Game 1 of the 2009 post-season - velocity. Jimenez broke 100 six times, 101 twice (101.4 max) and never fell below 95. Lee, meanwhile, only hit 95 twice (95.2 on the sinker and 95.1 on the four-seam).

Jimenez	#	MPH
Change	19	88.5
Curve	12	80.2
Fastball	42	98.5
Slider	10	87.9

Lee	#	MPH
Change	14	85.7
Curve	6	76.8
Sinker	35	93.2
Fastball	27	92.3
Cutter	26	87.7
Slider	2	78.8

Here are my usual favorites. Starting with pitches in the "wide" zone, swing rate, ump's B:CS ratio, swings out of zone (Chase) and takes in it (Watch)

	#	IWZ	Swing	B:CS	Chase	Watch
Jimenez	83	.566	.434	2.4	.222	.404
Lee	110	.655	.455	1.2	.211	.417

Cliff Lee threw more strike than anyone in in 2009, including Ted Lilly. A .6 strike rate is excellent. Even for a single game, .655 is ridiculous. Jimenez, with a .566 strike rate, also did well. He simply got out pitched, in this area.

This next set is a little surprising. Lee missd more bats, Jimenez got more grounders.

	#	Whiff	SLGCON	GB%	FB%	PU%	LD%
Jimenez	83	0.139	0.688	50%	25%	0%	25%
Lee	110	0.160	0.333	37%	37%	11%	15%

The Phillies were able to square up a lot of pitches against Jimenez. Lee's cutter was the money pitch, with 67% grounders and 17% pop-ups (the rest of the infield flies were off his four-seamer). Although a sinker thrown for a strike more than three times out of four is pretty nasty.

Moving into run values, negative is better for pitchers, you'll see Jimenez gave up more hits and total bases than expected (rv100E is based on batted ball, or contact, type instead of single/double/out etc) while Lee was dramatically skewed the other way.

	#	rv100	rv100E
Jimenez	83	1.32	0.03
Lee	110	-3.38	-1.06

Simply put, Lee had it going all day. Jimenez was fine, if not better, at the outset.

First four inn.	#	rv100	rv100E
Jimenez	37	-6.66	-2.30
Lee	46	-3.07	-1.41

I'd say Jimenez was better at the start. I was only able to listen to the game and "see" it via PITCHf/x - did it look that way to you?

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In the first 2-3 innings, yes it did look like Jimenez was throwing better

at least to me

by philadelphiacub on Oct 7, 2009 7:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Ubaldo was fantastic with his location through the first 4 innings — and when a guy with that kind of raw stuff is pounding the strike zone, he’s going to be damn near impossible to hit. It’s almost as if he unraveled after Werth’s walk and Ibanez’s RBI double in the 5th — he started missing his spots, hanging his change ups, and it all came apart from there.

Sorry, all of that was a long-winded way of answering your question: yes, Ubaldo was definitely more impressive through 4 innings.

by PhillyFriar on Oct 8, 2009 12:32 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs