Don’t Be Like Mike: Seattle Pitcher is Unreliable in Colorado
Colorado concludes its three-game home series with Seattle on Sunday at 3:10 ET. Colorado fans and backers will be happy heading into the All-Star Break.
Seattle Mariners at Colorado Rockies
MLB Pick: 1H Colorado
Seattle’s Mike Leake (8-6, 4.36 ERA) shows poor form, allowing eight runs in his past eight innings. He has yielded an FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) over 5.50 in his last two road starts. History doesn’t offer him hope. In his one career start in Colorado, he yielded six runs in 4.1 innings.
Leake relies on five different pitches with at least 10 percent frequency, the cutter, curve, change-up, slider and, his favorite, the sinker. Leake is suffering because opponents are slugging .750 against his sinker. Opponents are punishing it partly because his other pitches are lacking quality so that his pitch variety is no longer a weapon. He likes to aim low in the zone in order to induce ground balls—which he does with 49% frequency. But lately, he is leaving his pitches elevated and in the more hittable, middle regions of the plate. His poor command is also affecting his sinker, which he’s throwing with seven percent lower frequency for a strike. Problematically, he leans on this pitch especially when he’s behind in the count. So he’s increasingly predictable. In his last three starts, batters are slugging .667 against his sinker when ahead in the count.
Colorado is the last place where a pitcher wants location issues. Pitchers want to aim low in Coors Field, because if they leave pitches up in the zone, batters are more likely to drive them and the flight of batted balls will meet with less resistance from Denver's reduced air density. Pitchers place their stuff with 28% frequency in the lowest row of the strike zone and the row below that both in Colorado and overall. Conversely, Colorado’s pitchers hit with 29.4% frequency the lowest locations in Colorado, but only 28.7% overall. Colorado pitchers show more success with their low placement of breaking and off-speed pitches at home— whereas other pitchers struggle — because they have more practice. Achieving vertical depth with a fastball is actually easier in Colorado, but breaking pitches lose some movement, meaning that pitchers have to adjust their aim. Leake struggled in Coors Field because he, unlike Anderson, avoids throwing fastballs, but instead relies more on breaking pitches. I expect him to struggle again because he possesses the same pitching arsenal and is struggling with location.
The Rockies are strongly underachieving, based on quality of contact, against Leake’s top pitch, the sinker. Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon are hitting over .300 in their past seven days.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="de"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Volume 3, Chapter 19<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/StoryTime?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#StoryTime</a> <a href="https://t.co/69iOUS3l0Z">pic.twitter.com/69iOUS3l0Z</a></p>— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) <a href=" ">14. Juli 2018</a></blockquote>
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Colorado’s southpaw Tyler Anderson (6-3, 3.76 ERA) has allowed one run in his last 22 innings. His command was off in his last start, leading to an inefficient outing, but he still only allowed three hits in six innings against Arizona.
Anderson relies on a fastball-cutter-change combo. His most effective pitch is his cutter, which opponents bat .191 against. He excels in placing it on the lower periphery of the zone, combining precise placement with arm-side movement to make it a reliable whiff pitch. Anderson’s strong form, though, derives from the improvement in his fastball, which he is throwing less often in those spots where opponents had been slamming it and adding more spin to. He is focusing on it more at the expense of his change-up and curve and yielding an opposing BA of .200 or lower in each of his last three starts, even though two of his last three opponents rank higher in slugging against the fastball from lefties than Seattle in the past month.
Seattle’s lineup is the second-most overachieving team both in slugging and BA against Anderson’s top three pitches from lefties. The team is profitable overall, but yields negative units against southpaws. Seattle’s top hitter, Jean Segura, is batting under .200 against lefties in the past month.
Colorado concludes its three-game home series with Seattle on Sunday at 3:10 ET. Colorado fans and backers will be happy heading into the All-Star Break.
Seattle Mariners at Colorado Rockies
MLB Pick: 1H Colorado
Seattle’s Mike Leake (8-6, 4.36 ERA) shows poor form, allowing eight runs in his past eight innings. He has yielded an FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) over 5.50 in his last two road starts. History doesn’t offer him hope. In his one career start in Colorado, he yielded six runs in 4.1 innings.
Leake relies on five different pitches with at least 10 percent frequency, the cutter, curve, change-up, slider and, his favorite, the sinker. Leake is suffering because opponents are slugging .750 against his sinker. Opponents are punishing it partly because his other pitches are lacking quality so that his pitch variety is no longer a weapon. He likes to aim low in the zone in order to induce ground balls—which he does with 49% frequency. But lately, he is leaving his pitches elevated and in the more hittable, middle regions of the plate. His poor command is also affecting his sinker, which he’s throwing with seven percent lower frequency for a strike. Problematically, he leans on this pitch especially when he’s behind in the count. So he’s increasingly predictable. In his last three starts, batters are slugging .667 against his sinker when ahead in the count.
Colorado is the last place where a pitcher wants location issues. Pitchers want to aim low in Coors Field, because if they leave pitches up in the zone, batters are more likely to drive them and the flight of batted balls will meet with less resistance from Denver's reduced air density. Pitchers place their stuff with 28% frequency in the lowest row of the strike zone and the row below that both in Colorado and overall. Conversely, Colorado’s pitchers hit with 29.4% frequency the lowest locations in Colorado, but only 28.7% overall. Colorado pitchers show more success with their low placement of breaking and off-speed pitches at home— whereas other pitchers struggle — because they have more practice. Achieving vertical depth with a fastball is actually easier in Colorado, but breaking pitches lose some movement, meaning that pitchers have to adjust their aim. Leake struggled in Coors Field because he, unlike Anderson, avoids throwing fastballs, but instead relies more on breaking pitches. I expect him to struggle again because he possesses the same pitching arsenal and is struggling with location.
The Rockies are strongly underachieving, based on quality of contact, against Leake’s top pitch, the sinker. Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon are hitting over .300 in their past seven days.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="de"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Volume 3, Chapter 19<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/StoryTime?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#StoryTime</a> <a href="https://t.co/69iOUS3l0Z">pic.twitter.com/69iOUS3l0Z</a></p>— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) <a href=" ">14. Juli 2018</a></blockquote>
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Colorado’s southpaw Tyler Anderson (6-3, 3.76 ERA) has allowed one run in his last 22 innings. His command was off in his last start, leading to an inefficient outing, but he still only allowed three hits in six innings against Arizona.
Anderson relies on a fastball-cutter-change combo. His most effective pitch is his cutter, which opponents bat .191 against. He excels in placing it on the lower periphery of the zone, combining precise placement with arm-side movement to make it a reliable whiff pitch. Anderson’s strong form, though, derives from the improvement in his fastball, which he is throwing less often in those spots where opponents had been slamming it and adding more spin to. He is focusing on it more at the expense of his change-up and curve and yielding an opposing BA of .200 or lower in each of his last three starts, even though two of his last three opponents rank higher in slugging against the fastball from lefties than Seattle in the past month.
Seattle’s lineup is the second-most overachieving team both in slugging and BA against Anderson’s top three pitches from lefties. The team is profitable overall, but yields negative units against southpaws. Seattle’s top hitter, Jean Segura, is batting under .200 against lefties in the past month.
