Dodgers Will Want to Hide From Giants in Sunday Matinee
The Dodgers close a three-game series with their rival Giants on Sunday at 4:10 ET. The injury situation with LA’s pitching rotation gives San Francisco a decisive edge.
San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers
MLB Pick: San Francisco 1H
Due to injuries in their rotation, LA is forced to keep relying on 21-year-old Caleb Ferguson (0-0, 9.53 ERA). Ferguson is not an MLB-ready starting pitcher. He only has two main pitches—a fastball, which he throws 74% of the time, and a curveball. Lack of variety is problematic because a starting pitcher is supposed to pitch many innings. But if he little to offer, batters will figure him out and knock him out of the game soon enough. Rookie starters tend to struggle with pitch variety and it’s a problem that each of them, by necessity, fix by their second year—look at, for instance, Philly’s Nick Pivetta and Kansas City’s Eric Skoglund, both of whom relied on the fastball over 60% of the time as a rookie and drastically reduced their fastball usage in their second year in order to develop their other pitches.
Ferguson has managed only 5.2 innings in two starts because he hasn’t made much professional progress. Another criterion that I look for in evaluating a young pitcher is his command. Everyone who can pitch in the majors has good stuff and Ferguson’s strikeout-per-nine-innings rate is respectable. But he’s also walking 7.94 batters per nine innings. Because he’s struggling to command his pitches, he has to invest extra effort just to throw a strike. As a result, he leaves too many pitches in the more hittable parts of the strike zone. He leaves 7.4% of his pitches in the heart of the plate. Three of his most frequent pitch locations are in the middle region of the zone, where batters tend to do the most damage.
Regardless of Ferguson’s problems, the Giants match up well against him. In the past month, SF ranks sixth in slugging against lefties and fourth in slugging against Ferguson’s favorite pitch, the fastball, thrown by southpaws. Look out for Brandon Crawford, who is slugging .696 in June. Buster Posey slugs .514 against southpaws and Andrew McCutchen is slugging .732 in June.
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San Fran’s Chris Stratton (7-4, 4.56 ERA) is an established professional starter. He doesn’t need to rely on his fastball even 60% of the time thanks to his expanse of secondary offerings. His fastball is enjoying a career-best .222 opposing BA. He throws it more often for a strike and generates a greater whiff rate with it. He is able to be more confident and successful with his fastball because opponents are less able to sit on it. He throws it less often overall and mixes in a greater variety of pitches in different situations, making him more unpredictable. For example, last season, he threw his fastball with 79% frequency to right-handed batters when behind in the count with runners in scoring position. This season, he does so only 42% of the time. Moreover, Stratton has reduced his walk rate to nearly half that of Ferguson.
Because Stratton has developed pitch variety and stronger command, he can last longer in outings. He is enjoying good form, yielding an FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) under 4.00 in his last three starts. He has endured 17 innings in his past three starts, but only 17 because of his tough outing against Arizona, when Arizona benefitted from a fortunately high BABIP (batting average of balls in play).
Stratton’s ERA is so high because he had a tough stretch over a month ago, which an outing against LA started, in which he was completely off and would have struggled against any lineup. But he has achieved his strong form despite facing two teams which rank in the upper half against the fastball thrown by righties. His first two starts against LA show promise—in both of them, he allowed one run in the first five innings.
Stratton is the more developed and proven pitcher and justifies the 1H play on San Fran.
The Dodgers close a three-game series with their rival Giants on Sunday at 4:10 ET. The injury situation with LA’s pitching rotation gives San Francisco a decisive edge.
San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers
MLB Pick: San Francisco 1H
Due to injuries in their rotation, LA is forced to keep relying on 21-year-old Caleb Ferguson (0-0, 9.53 ERA). Ferguson is not an MLB-ready starting pitcher. He only has two main pitches—a fastball, which he throws 74% of the time, and a curveball. Lack of variety is problematic because a starting pitcher is supposed to pitch many innings. But if he little to offer, batters will figure him out and knock him out of the game soon enough. Rookie starters tend to struggle with pitch variety and it’s a problem that each of them, by necessity, fix by their second year—look at, for instance, Philly’s Nick Pivetta and Kansas City’s Eric Skoglund, both of whom relied on the fastball over 60% of the time as a rookie and drastically reduced their fastball usage in their second year in order to develop their other pitches.
Ferguson has managed only 5.2 innings in two starts because he hasn’t made much professional progress. Another criterion that I look for in evaluating a young pitcher is his command. Everyone who can pitch in the majors has good stuff and Ferguson’s strikeout-per-nine-innings rate is respectable. But he’s also walking 7.94 batters per nine innings. Because he’s struggling to command his pitches, he has to invest extra effort just to throw a strike. As a result, he leaves too many pitches in the more hittable parts of the strike zone. He leaves 7.4% of his pitches in the heart of the plate. Three of his most frequent pitch locations are in the middle region of the zone, where batters tend to do the most damage.
Regardless of Ferguson’s problems, the Giants match up well against him. In the past month, SF ranks sixth in slugging against lefties and fourth in slugging against Ferguson’s favorite pitch, the fastball, thrown by southpaws. Look out for Brandon Crawford, who is slugging .696 in June. Buster Posey slugs .514 against southpaws and Andrew McCutchen is slugging .732 in June.
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San Fran’s Chris Stratton (7-4, 4.56 ERA) is an established professional starter. He doesn’t need to rely on his fastball even 60% of the time thanks to his expanse of secondary offerings. His fastball is enjoying a career-best .222 opposing BA. He throws it more often for a strike and generates a greater whiff rate with it. He is able to be more confident and successful with his fastball because opponents are less able to sit on it. He throws it less often overall and mixes in a greater variety of pitches in different situations, making him more unpredictable. For example, last season, he threw his fastball with 79% frequency to right-handed batters when behind in the count with runners in scoring position. This season, he does so only 42% of the time. Moreover, Stratton has reduced his walk rate to nearly half that of Ferguson.
Because Stratton has developed pitch variety and stronger command, he can last longer in outings. He is enjoying good form, yielding an FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) under 4.00 in his last three starts. He has endured 17 innings in his past three starts, but only 17 because of his tough outing against Arizona, when Arizona benefitted from a fortunately high BABIP (batting average of balls in play).
Stratton’s ERA is so high because he had a tough stretch over a month ago, which an outing against LA started, in which he was completely off and would have struggled against any lineup. But he has achieved his strong form despite facing two teams which rank in the upper half against the fastball thrown by righties. His first two starts against LA show promise—in both of them, he allowed one run in the first five innings.
Stratton is the more developed and proven pitcher and justifies the 1H play on San Fran.
