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For The Want of a Curveball
Friday night, the Royals went down to defeat at the hands of the Orioles 7-4. Four runs should be enough when Kansas City has Gil Meche on the mound - if they had scored that many last season for Gil, he likely would have won 16 or 17 games.
This year, however, four runs is not usuall near enough. Meche struggles to finish off hitters: last night expending 10 pitches to strike out Kevin Millar in the second, allowing Melvin Mora to work a nine pitch walk in the first and starting the game with a 7 pitch out against Brian Roberts. Worse, as it has most of the season, the Gil’s curveball was ineffective.
Of the 98 pitches it took Meche to get through five innings, only fourteen were curveballs. Not once did a hitter swing and miss at one of Meche’s curves. The results on curves were as follows:
1 - called strike
3 - foul balls
5 - balls
1 - ground out
2 - singles
2 - home runs
That’s right, four of the six hits allowed by Meche were on curveballs and the two home runs he allowed (one after being ahead 0-2 in the count) drove in all five runs charged to Gil. Control and velocity issues aside (Meche routinely reached 96 mph last season, this year has rarely even tickled 94 mph), the lack of a good curve had turned Meche into a below average pitcher.
Until Meche can recapture a pitch that was widely regarded as the best curve in the organization, his turn in the rotation is likely to yield a lot more outings like Friday night.
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7 Responses to “For The Want of a Curveball”
May 10th, 2008 at 11:28 am
In your considerable opinion, is Meche just experiencing early troubles with the curve or is it gone for good? It’s unsettling when you can’t relax with Gil on the mound.
What did you think of the Markakis walk? Me, I had to rub my eyes a few times, thinking maybe I had blacked out and it was suddenly the eighth or ninth inning. Who gives a pass to a moderately hot hitter so early in the game? Who, I ask you?
May 10th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I don’t remember him hitting 96mph very often last year, if at all.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I absolutely HATE to bring this up but… is there a CHANCE that Gil is actually nursing an injury that we as fans don’t know about? Is it even POSSIBLE that he has something wrong that he hasn’t mentioned to the team? Can a good manager, pitching coach, or even trainer pick-up on such a possibility? I mean… the difference between the ‘08 version and the ‘07 version of Gil is huge isn’t it?
And if it really is just a bad curve… why can’t it be FIXED??? I mean, this is getting frustrating. Maybe it is just because of my overblown optimism for the HOPE of REAL improvement on this club. The offense is struggling… our “Ace” is struggling… our manager is struggling to put a consistent lineup in place… our marquee free agents from each of the past two years are struggling… just how much are we to endure?
Hey, yes… I do realize our record is marginally better than last year at this time. But seriously… improve already will ya? I LOVE that Zack is doing so well. I STILL believe in Banny and his thinking man’s approach to pitching. Hochevar has done more than just “flash” some marginal skills and has already given me more hope that I initially had regarding him. I remain optimistic that Gordon/Butler/DDJ/Teahen are going to be MORE than adequate Big Leaguers.
BUT… when is Buck going to earn his keep? What about the SS position? What is there to make believe Grudz isn’t going to fade as the season wears on? And are we REALLY going to rely on a Tomko or Bale when we have a youngster like Davies pitching pretty good in the Minors?
Sorry. I only just realized I’ve started to ramble. never mind.
Go Royals!!! C-ya, AusSteveW
May 10th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Aussie Steve…couldn’t agree with you more. I think teams have us figured out. Our young hitters are a step behind the pitching. Callaspo’s average has quickly dipped below .300. Where is there hope on offense? Where oh where?
May 10th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I still don’t understand the fervent dislike of Buck. It’s pretty obvious to me that he has become more patient at the plate as of late, and his OBP has risen fairly consistently since the beginnig of the season ().
Yes, he’s not hitting for the power of Olivo, and I do understand wanting to get Olivo more AB’s, but benching the our #5 OPS player isn’t the solution I’d go for.
Lineup of 9 of the top 10 OPS (batting order, not OPS order)*
1) DDJ CF
2) Callaspo SS
3) Olivo DH
4) Gordon 3B
5) Butler 1B
6) Grud 2B
7) Buck C
8) Guillen RF
9) Teahen LF
* Guillen is #10 in OPS and Gload is #9. As much as it’s fun to whine about Guillen’s underperformance, it’s not going to continue. It’s just not. If you look at the trend, note who’s going up and who’s going down:
Hrm. Now that I look at, I see that Olivo played 5 games at 1B for the Marlins in 06, for only 9 total innings. Still, I wonder how he fields compared to Butler.
May 10th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Whoops, messed up the HTML in a bad way. If someone wants to delete the previous one… >.>
Fixed:
I still don’t understand the fervent dislike of Buck. It’s pretty obvious to me that he has become more patient at the plate as of late, and his OBP has risen fairly consistently since the beginnig of the season (graph).
Yes, he’s not hitting for the power of Olivo, and I do understand wanting to get Olivo more AB’s, but benching the our #5 OPS player isn’t the solution I’d go for.
Lineup of 9 of the top 10 OPS (batting order, not OPS order)*
1) DDJ CF
2) Callaspo SS
3) Olivo DH
4) Gordon 3B
5) Butler 1B
6) Grud 2B
7) Buck C
8) Guillen RF
9) Teahen LF
* Guillen is #10 in OPS and Gload is #9. As much as it’s fun to whine about Guillen’s underperformance, it’s not going to continue. It’s just not. If you look at the trend, note who’s going up and who’s going down: another graph
Hrm. Now that I look at, I see that Olivo played 5 games at 1B for the Marlins in 06, for only 9 total innings. Still, I wonder how he fields compared to Butler.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Here’s a website that has tracked and compiled pitch f/x data for a number of players, including
Gil Meche.
If you scroll down to the speed graph, you can see from this that Gil threw a number of pitches at 95 and 96 mph. From my own recollection of last season, Meche regularly worked in a handful of 95-96 mph fastballs (five or so per game) in most of his 2007 starts.
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