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Legynd wrote:By the way, Reyes has not been "ruined by the coaching staff." That dependence on the 4-seamer that gets by AAA hitters gets clobbered at the major league level. He needs to pitch to contact and quit rolling up those huge pitch counts.

He had impeccable control in the minors. There shouldn't have been a preemptive concern for pitch-count.

Legynd wrote:By the way, Reyes has not been "ruined by the coaching staff." That dependence on the 4-seamer that gets by AAA hitters gets clobbered at the major league level. He needs to pitch to contact and quit rolling up those huge pitch counts.

Strikeouts keep pitch counts down by, well, getting outs.

That junky little two-seamer Reyes is throwing is getting clobbered (when he actually manages to throw it over the plate), so I'm not really sure what the benefit is here.

The silver lining to Reyes's start is that I'm not paying much attention to the return of the 2007 non-offense.

It's all about command with Reyes. He'll throw an A+ changeup, bust a guy in on his hands, and then follow it up with three pitches not even close to the plate.

Just when Al and Dan boast about Duncan taking good angles, he takes a bad angle.

DP, nice!

Legynd wrote: I'm darn proud of Reyes tonight, coming back after the rough 1st.


Legynd

I'll give him that tonight.

I can't believe we got 5 out of Anthony tonight.

PW with a pretty AB...

Legynd wrote:You can't compare Reyes' minor league success to the majors. If every good AAA pitcher did the same thing in the majors, nobody would ever get hits. Major league hitters are major league hitters, not AAA hitters. And Reyes' 92 mph 4 seamer is not going to challenge Nolan Ryan for the strikeout record.

He threw a little harder than that, but that doesn't matter. Any fastball by itself isn't going to challenge professional hitters at any level. Plus change, good curve, great control. It would be fine if he added a 2-seamer as an auxiliary weapon, but that's not the case, he's basically a different pitcher.

Pitcher who strikes out everyone, averaging 5 pitches per batter: 135 pitches. Pitcher who strikes out nobody, but pitches perfect game and pitches to contact, averaging 4 pitches per batter: 108 pitches. And Reyes isn't striking out everyone.

Those are both ridiculous scenarios. If you are getting batters out it doesn't really matter how you do it, your pitch count will be fine. You walk a bunch of people (like tonight) and it starts getting out of control fast.

Pitcher who strikes out everyone, averaging 5 pitches per batter: 135 pitches. Pitcher who strikes out nobody, but pitches perfect game and pitches to contact, averaging 4 pitches per batter: 108 pitches.

The problem here is that something like 25% (or more) of those balls that are contacted will be base hits or reached on errors. Optimistically 4/.75 = 5.3.

Reyes's pitch count problem is a function of his inability to throw strikes. Gee, when did this become a problem?