Chris Young's Shaky First Inning

Chris Young needed 43 pitches to get through the first inning in tonight's game in Philadelphia. He walked two and gave up four hits, including a three-run home run to Chase Utley after back-to-back singles by Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino.

Young's line after he left with two outs in the third inning:

3.2 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR (82 pitches, 51 strikes)

Here's a chart of his tumultuous first inning.

It appears as if Young could only throw his fastball for strikes -- his two sliders were barely in the strike zone and only 4 of his 13 change-ups were in there. Meanwhile, of his 28 fastballs, only 7 were out of the strike zone. All four of the first-inning hits came on fastballs as well. That is a stark contrast to the fact that four of the five hits Young allowed after the first inning came on off-speed pitches (three change-ups, one slider).

Interested in learning how to create Pitch F/X graphs? Check out R.J. Anderson's awesome tutorials, Sky Kalkman's article on understanding the graphs, or check out my supplementary videos.