It’s Friday the 13th for Pitchers in Angels-Dodgers Tilt
The Dodgers begin a three-game home series against the Angels on Friday at 10:10 ET. Neither pitcher will find much luck against the opposing lineup.
Los Angeles Angels at Los Angeles Dodgers
MLB Pick: 1H Over
Felix Pena (1-0, 3.63 ERA) has found success in the starting role. As a reliever last season, his FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) was 5.78. This year, it is 3.40. He’s achieving more strikeouts and surrendering fewer walks and home runs.
Pena relies on a fastball-sinker-slider combo. Overall, his sinker and slider make up 75% of his pitching arsenal. He relies on them in all scenarios against both lefties and righties, the sinker more so when the batter is ahead and the slider rather with two strikes in the count. But his usage of these three pitches varies starkly per outing. In his last outing, he was able to rely almost exclusively on his sinker and slider. Despite his emphasis on the slider, opponents are slugging only .172 against it. It’s his best weapon thanks to its lack of vertical movement, which keeps it from hanging, and its location. He keeps it with nearly 50% frequency in the lowest row of the zone and opponents can barely touch it there.
The most difficult aspect of his slider is its deception. Opponents hardly know to expect it because it shares nearly identical vertical and horizontal release points with its sinker. If opponents brace for his slider, they’ll be challenged by the velocity and increased arm-side movement of his sinker. If they brace for his sinker, they’ll be frozen by his slider's major velocity drop. Despite their increased velocity, Pena’s sinker and fastball don’t fare as well. He struggles to locate both pitches nearly as well as he does his slider, leaving them up in the middle, more hittable parts of the zone with significantly greater frequency. Opponents are batting over .300 against both of those two pitches.
He’ll look to repeat his outing against the Dodgers on July 6, when he held them to two runs over 5.1 innings. In that game, he was anomalously strong. He commanded his pitches for strikes with greater frequency. Most notably, his first-pitch strike percentage was an insane 81%. He was able to be this confident with his command because his stuff was of unusually high-quality. Compared to his season averages, his slider had more horizontal movement (or „slide“) and his sinker „sank“ more because he took some spin off of his pitches, and his velocity went up. Pena will come back down to earth while the Dodgers will benefit from seeing him again for the second time in a week. They match up well against him, ranking fourth in slugging against the fastball, slider, and sinker from righties, even though, according to the metric SLG-xSLG, they are underachieving against these pitches based on quality of contact. Look out for Matt Kemp, who is batting nearly .400 in July.
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Walker Buehler (4-2, 3.44 ERA) will try to counter for the Dodgers in his second attempt at returning from the DL after a rib injury. On May 21, Buehler was pelted in his ribs by a line drive from Colorado’s Trevor Story. He endured a few more starts until he was pulled in the middle of an outing on June 8 after his velocity dropped and his mechanics otherwise began to suffer. After being declared pain-free, he returned for a rehab appearance on June 28 against the Cubs and yielded five runs in one inning. I have no more confidence in Friday's appearance, even though he has (again) been declared pain-free and ready to go. The rust, if not the injury itself, continue to be worrisome for Buehler. Watch for Mike Trout, who is slugging over .600 in his past seven days.
The Dodgers begin a three-game home series against the Angels on Friday at 10:10 ET. Neither pitcher will find much luck against the opposing lineup.
Los Angeles Angels at Los Angeles Dodgers
MLB Pick: 1H Over
Felix Pena (1-0, 3.63 ERA) has found success in the starting role. As a reliever last season, his FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) was 5.78. This year, it is 3.40. He’s achieving more strikeouts and surrendering fewer walks and home runs.
Pena relies on a fastball-sinker-slider combo. Overall, his sinker and slider make up 75% of his pitching arsenal. He relies on them in all scenarios against both lefties and righties, the sinker more so when the batter is ahead and the slider rather with two strikes in the count. But his usage of these three pitches varies starkly per outing. In his last outing, he was able to rely almost exclusively on his sinker and slider. Despite his emphasis on the slider, opponents are slugging only .172 against it. It’s his best weapon thanks to its lack of vertical movement, which keeps it from hanging, and its location. He keeps it with nearly 50% frequency in the lowest row of the zone and opponents can barely touch it there.
The most difficult aspect of his slider is its deception. Opponents hardly know to expect it because it shares nearly identical vertical and horizontal release points with its sinker. If opponents brace for his slider, they’ll be challenged by the velocity and increased arm-side movement of his sinker. If they brace for his sinker, they’ll be frozen by his slider's major velocity drop. Despite their increased velocity, Pena’s sinker and fastball don’t fare as well. He struggles to locate both pitches nearly as well as he does his slider, leaving them up in the middle, more hittable parts of the zone with significantly greater frequency. Opponents are batting over .300 against both of those two pitches.
He’ll look to repeat his outing against the Dodgers on July 6, when he held them to two runs over 5.1 innings. In that game, he was anomalously strong. He commanded his pitches for strikes with greater frequency. Most notably, his first-pitch strike percentage was an insane 81%. He was able to be this confident with his command because his stuff was of unusually high-quality. Compared to his season averages, his slider had more horizontal movement (or „slide“) and his sinker „sank“ more because he took some spin off of his pitches, and his velocity went up. Pena will come back down to earth while the Dodgers will benefit from seeing him again for the second time in a week. They match up well against him, ranking fourth in slugging against the fastball, slider, and sinker from righties, even though, according to the metric SLG-xSLG, they are underachieving against these pitches based on quality of contact. Look out for Matt Kemp, who is batting nearly .400 in July.
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Walker Buehler (4-2, 3.44 ERA) will try to counter for the Dodgers in his second attempt at returning from the DL after a rib injury. On May 21, Buehler was pelted in his ribs by a line drive from Colorado’s Trevor Story. He endured a few more starts until he was pulled in the middle of an outing on June 8 after his velocity dropped and his mechanics otherwise began to suffer. After being declared pain-free, he returned for a rehab appearance on June 28 against the Cubs and yielded five runs in one inning. I have no more confidence in Friday's appearance, even though he has (again) been declared pain-free and ready to go. The rust, if not the injury itself, continue to be worrisome for Buehler. Watch for Mike Trout, who is slugging over .600 in his past seven days.
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