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Were you among the 28,000+ that bade farewell to Zack Greinke's masterful 2009 season? What a party. And what a fitting conclusion to his year at home. You had little offense (thanks for the 3 run bomb Yuni!) but the man kept his team in the game the whole way. Then you had Joakim Soria bring it home for a six out save to give Greinke his 16th win on the year. If only all Greinke's starts had been like this.
Nevertheless, I hope the Royals Hall of Fame is clearing shelf space for some additional hardware.
I’ve been rough on SABR Trey all summer, but I will give the man credit for the way he’s handled Grienke coming down the stretch. In a meaningless September game for the Royals, but one that had just a ton of meaning for Greinke’s chances for post season hardware, Hillman did a fine job finding the proper balance. He removed Greinke after seven innings and 97 pitches.
Let’s look at some of those pitches.
Greinke threw 55 fastballs. His maximum speed, according to PITCHf/x was 98 mph and his average fastball speed was roughly 94 mph. That’s right in line with his seasonal averages. It’s what we expect when Greinke is healthy and on his game. Obviously, he was both of those on Sunday.
Of those fastballs he was pumping at Twin hitters, 39 of them - or 71% - were strikes. Three of them (8%) were swing and misses.
Those are some fine ratios. However the story isn’t about his velocity or his fastball in general.
These days, it’s all about his slider.
Greinke is throwing the slider roughly 21% of the time. He’s never thrown this pitch this much in his major league career. He’s mixing it in with his curveball, which he throws about 14% of the time. These two off speed pitches are a key part of his repertoire, at the expense of his change-up.
Here’s how Greinke’s pitches looked on Sunday from the bird’s eye view:
Greinke’s slider is the most devastating pitch in the game. It dives in on left handed hitters and moves down and away from the right handers. The fact he can throw this pitch in the low 90s gives it that fastball vibe, but at the last instant… BOOM! Away it goes. This was the pitch that was on display Sunday. He uncorked a slider 15 times and registered a strike with 11 of those pitches. And of those 15 strikes, 5 of them were of the swing and miss variety.
It may seem like the 15 sliders isn’t that large of a number. I guess in the grand scheme of things, it’s not. But consider this: Of those five swing and misses on Grienke’s slider, all of them resulted in a third strike. His fastball works so well, he uses it to jump ahead… Then comes the wicked slider to seal the deal.
Here’s how Greinke used his slider on Sunday:
In the 1st, he threw 2 sliders, both times with 2 strikes on the batter. The result was one fly out and one swing and a miss strikeout.
In the 2nd, he threw 1 slider when he had 2 strikes on the batter. The result was a swing and a miss strikeout.
In the 3rd, he threw 5 sliders total, with 3 of them when he had 2 strikes. One slider was fouled off, two sliders were taken for a ball and two were swung at and missed for a third strike
In the 4th, Greinke didn’t throw a slider
In the 5th, he threw 1 slider, coming with 2 strikes on the hitter. The result was a swing and a miss strikeout.
In the 6th, he threw 3 sliders in a row to Jason Kubel. Kubel fouled off 2, and took 1 for a ball
In the 7th, he threw 3 sliders, 3 with 2 strikes. The result was one single, one foul and one ball
The Kubel at bat where Greinke fed him three consecutive sliders came at a key junction in the game. At the time, the Royals were leading 4-0 and the first two batters in the Twins half of the sixth had singled, putting runners at first and second. If Kubel can get a base hit, that would really turn up the heat on the Royals and Greinke. And you can bet, Greinke didn’t want to hand over his start to the bullpen in the sixth inning. Trust those bums to hold a four run lead with anywhere between 12 and nine outs to go? No thanks.
Unfortunately, Greinke couldn’t get Kubel out on the slider. Kubel had already fouled off two fastballs and was down in the count 1-2. On the first slider, Kubel again fouled it off. He took the second for a ball and then fouled off the third. Perhaps thinking he had gone to the slider well one time too often, Greinke went back to the fastball and got him to ground out.
It was another masterful performance from the best pitcher I’ve ever seen in a Royals uniform. His final line:
7 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 8 SO
He shaved a couple hundredths off his ERA and it’s now 2.06. If he throws seven shutout innings in his final start against the Twins, he’ll finish with a 1.99 ERA.
Since the DH became the rule in 1973, only three American League pitchers have posted a sub 2.00 ERA:
1978 - Ron Guidry 1.74
1990 - Roger Clemens 1.93
2000 - Pedro Martinez 1.74
The bad news we can glean from this list? Clemens in 1990 didn’t win the Cy Young. He lost to Bob Welch, who had 6 more wins than the Rocket. Check out the stats between the two… What happened to Clemens was robbery. Straight up theft.
Thankfully, there isn’t a similar situation this year where one starter has lapped the field in the win column. Greinke now has 16 wins and while some writers may grumble that’s not enough, no pitcher is currently at 20 wins. And CC Sabathia, who the Royals will face on Wednesday, is the only pitcher who can reach this mystical plateau. My bias aside, I can’t believe that anyone could give their first place vote to anyone but Greinke. Unfortunately, we all know how some of these crotchety sportswriters can be… “It’s all about the wins! Who cares about stats? Wins matter!”
That will be Sabathia’s final start of the year. How freakin’ sweet is that? Here we had figured the Royals to be playing meaningless September baseball, and now on the final day of the month, they actually have something important to play for.
Beat Sabathia and win the Cy Young for Greinke.
Of course the irony of the Royal hitters possibly clinching the Cy Young for their teammate isn’t lost here. If those bums had done even half their job during the season, it wouldn’t be coming down to this.
Sometimes though, redemption kicks ass.
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Comments
Grienke is hands down no argument CY Young now but something tells me that the lore of Cece's 1 hitter vs Da SAAKs on national tv gets the blood curling and hyperbole blowing east coast writers who find the magic of a championship run etc etc- maybe Grinks convinced a Minnesota sports dinosaur today probably not