Casey Kelly shook off the shaky appearance he made a week ago against the Diamondbacks and turned in six strong innings before fading, as the San Diego Padres defeated the Colorado Rockies 4-3 Saturday night at Petco Park in San Diego. The Rockies got after Kelly for 3 runs in the seventh, but Brad Brach came to the rescue, shutting three Colorado batters down and stranding one.
Drew Pomeranz started for Colorado, having managed to last longer than 4 innings only once in his last nine outings. He only made it three on Saturday. He gave up a run in the second after striking-out Jesus Guzman and Yonder Alonso when Cameron Maybin singled and rookie Andy Parrino popped a double to right with the Rockies’ DJ LeMahieu and Charlie Blackmon colliding on the catch-try. Then in the third Logan Forsythe singled and Chase Headley walked with one out. After retiring Yasmani Grandal, Pomeranz grooved a fastball to Guzman, who deposited it over the center-field wall for a 3-run homer and 4-run lead. Pomeranz threw 67 pitches, 42 strikes.
Colorado came-after Kelly in the seventh. Wilin Rosario led-off with an innocent ground-ball to short that Parrino, who was 2-4, surrounded and eventually dropped, allowing Rosario to reach without a throw. Tyler Colvin followed with a single, then Chris Nelson doubled-in Rosario, Colvin to 3rd. Blackmon lined a single to right to plate Colvin, putting an end to the night for Kelly. Brach came-on and retired LeMahieu on a sacrifice fly, Nelson scoring, then got pinch-hitting Jordan Pacheco to pop-out and Dexter Fowler to fly to left.
Brach stayed-on in the eighth and got Josh Rutledge to pop-out, then Joe Thatcher came-on and got Carlos Gonzalez to pop-up a bunt attempt that Alonso did a nice job of snaring and holding. Thatcher allowed a line-single by wilin Rosario, but then Dale Thayer came-on and struck-out Colvin. Luke Gregerson retired the Rockies in-order in the ninth, striking-out Nelson and Blackmon.
Colorado sent five relievers out after Pomeranz, and they covered five innings without surrendering a run. Carlos Torres went two, Edgmer Escalona turned-in a slick 7-pitch sixth, Will Harris and Josh Outman worked out of trouble in the seventh, and Josh Roenicke delivered a 1-2-3 eighth.
The NL West rivals play a rubber match Sunday afternoon starting at 2:05. Right-hander Alex White will go for the Rockies against lefty Andrew Werner of the Padres. Root will have the TV with George and Drew, and KOA 850 will have the radio with the Broncos idle until Monday.
Thinking about the 4/75 rotation thing with respect to the “New Coke” back in 1985. I always wondered what would have happened if Coke just slowly + quietly evolved their formula to meet the demographic they were targeting, rather than making a big hoopla of it. So what if the Rockies had just sort of stealthily evolved into the 75 pitch limit concept, rather than publicly announcing it? Seems like it would have given them a less scrutinized environment to experiment-in and come to where it looks like they’re going.
The more I think about it, the more I like it. The concept seems to have evolved to where you can more accurately describe it by saying you’re taking a posse of eight guys that you’re willing to use liberally in the first 6 innings of games. And on any given day you’re going to use 2 of them. If the starter is performing like Pomeranz, White, and Chatwood have, they’re out of there in the 4th or 5th. Bring-on the hybrid guy for up-to 3 innings. If the starter is cruising through 6 innings on 90 pitches, let him go. Give the hybrid guys a little more rest. If you get a group of 5 starters that can consistently get you through 5, it just gives you that much more flexibility. But these eight guys get you through the 6th, then you go Belisle-Brothers-Betancourt with two situational guys. So I think it says you need 13 pitchers.
But the other thing is this issue of arm-strain, or wear at altitude. If you accept that it’s real, and it certainly seems logical, then a natural reaction is to lighten the workload on your pitchers. What seemed illogical about the 4/75 concept was the guys theoretically were not throwing any fewer pitches, and then they were having to “tune-it-up” to go out and perform more often. With 5 guys, they step-up for-real at “normal” intervals, and with the short leash they’re inevitably going to throw fewer pitches. So you’ve accomplished your “medical” objective with the strategy as well. And you’ve also accomplished the objective of an optimal side-work interval.
I don’t know, I think you can say maybe these guys have thought things through pretty well. They’ve looked at the talent they have, their experience with pitchers at altitude the past 20 years, and conceded that the fact of altitude has physical consequences and you’ve got to act in response.
Not saying it’ll compensate for poor pitching, but I just think they’ve arrived at a pretty defensible approach to pitching strategy for our unique circumstances.
“These guys have thought things through pretty well?” Really? Now, excuse me if I’m missing something, but after swearing on a stack of Bibles just a few weeks ago that the 4-man rotation was here to stay, it suddenly occurs to O’Dowd that when working on 3 days rest his starters have less time to get in work in between starts? As in it just occurred to him that there’s 3 off days between Monday and Friday, but (wait a second, is my math right?) 4 off days between Monday and Saturday? Yeah, that’s “thinking things through pretty well,” although to me it bears a striking resemblance to “not thinking through things at all.” Or maybe to “my GM, who remains in charge on paper, has had all his power usurped by his underling Geivett and his MFL Tracy.” Which is what I told you guys was happening all along. Not to inject politics, but we could use a Mitt Romney who “enjoys firing people,” because this organization proves what happens when the opposite — being afraid to fire people lest you hurt someone’s feelings or admit your mistake — is in charge.
Doc, I like your list. But let me dispute a couple points (hey, 9 or 11 points of agreement ain’t bad).
– “There’s no question of the physical wear and tear on pitchers at altitude.” It may make some intuitive sense, but I just haven’t seen any evidence. Plus it’s awfull hard to separate the primary effect of pitching at altitude from the secondary effect of “pitching half your games in an extreme hitter’s environment.” The secondary effect seems more important to me; I’m just not sure that anyone’s ever shown that athletes break down faster when training/competing at altitude.
–”There’s no question that fear (lack of confidence) causes pitchers to nibble rather than pound the strike zone.” I think the stats don’t bear this out. Coors Field park BB factors (walks allowed by pitchers in Coors vs. other parks) don’t show much, if any, effect. In fact, the Coors BB park factor has been negative — a tick fewer walks at Coors than on the road — in some seasons. So I just don’t see this as an overall trend. No doubt it’s happened with certain pitchers in certain seasons, but I disagree that this is a general effect.
One thing that’s really important that you left out: the “Coors Hangover Effect.” Rockies hitters tend to become WORSE hitters on the road simply by virtue of playing half their games at Coors. This has been the case ever since Coors (and Mile High before it) opened for MLB. There’s various explanations, the best of which are: (1) Rockies hitters “unlearn” how to hit good breaking balls at Coors, since as you noted balls break less here; (2) Rockies hitters are rewarded (with home runs and other extra base hits) by developing subtle bad habits, like slight uppercuts to their swings. This improves their performance at Coors, but it doesn’t play on the road where those swing for the fences habits result in routine fly ball outs. I tend to favor the second theory, but whatever it is we know that this happens and any GM has to assume by now that he doesn’t have the ability to change it — he just has to try to maximize performance knowing that this will be the case.
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Given the inherent challenges posed by the altitude, have we learned anything about what kind of pitchers fare better or hold up better over time? Should we be developing a staff of sinker ballers to avoid home runs? Is there less wear and tear on finesse pitchers than speed pitchers or the other way around? What do we know after 20 years?
What do we know after 20 years? Here’s ten things I know.
There’s no question that altitude plays a role in how the game of baseball is played. There’s no question that a Coors Field pitch doesn’t break as much or as sharply as it does at sea level.
There’s no question that by it’s very size Coors Field is a hitter’s paradise.
There’s no question that hitter’s at Coors must be aware of becoming pull happy and over-swinging when they see the great expanse of green grass before them.
There’s no question fly ball pitchers in Coors Field are put under a huge amount of stress.
There’s no question of the physical wear and tear on pitchers at altitude
There’s no question that fear (lack of confidence) causes pitchers to nibble rather than pound the strike zone.
There’s no question that all of these factors play in a player’s head simply because they’re facts.
There’s no question that pitchers with good mechanics and fastball command can and do conquer Coors Field.
There’s no question that few if any of our starting 2012 pitchers and hybrids could make the starting rotation of any other major league team.
There’s no question that the smartest general manager in baseball assembled this pitching staff.
Okay 11 things, but who’s counting?
Nice list, Doc. Of course no. 11 is the kicker. I’m by no means trying to defend O’Dowd, but it seems like the dialog on the site has slipped-back to a place where insistence on his demise, and more recently, Tracy’s, is implicit in every comment. And I may be very very wrong, but my sense is that ain’t gonna happen, so hammering on it is nothing but a conversation stopper.
Or to put it simply, here’s what’s left of “Project 5183″ as Renck says O’Dowd calls it:
“It’s business as usual with the starting pitchers, but we’ll have a slightly quicker hook.”
Really, is there anything more to this? That’s what your intensive years of study have led you to conclude? Playing at altitude “fundamentally changes” how you have to approach pitching, so you’ve come up with the earth-shattering conclusion that pulling a pitcher at between 90-100 pitchers rather than at 100-115 (and how many times in recent history has a Rockies pitcher exceeded that level) will make things better? It will, but it’s only a trivial effect, and it certainly isn’t anything like the kind of bold change that they’ve been trying to sell us on since June.
The only thing this regime is good at is coming up with catchy phrases like “Year of the Fan” & “Project 5183″. I sure hope “Project 5183″ turns out better than “Year of the Fan” did.