| 03 August 2009
If the playoffs startered today Brad Penny would be our No. 3 starter.
Thank your lucky starts they don't.
In June, it looked like Penny might be on the verge of a solid second half, posting a 3.18 ERA and a .250 BAA - His lowest mark of any month this season. But after chipping away at his 8.66 ERA on April 28th to a respectable 4.67 on July 4th, Penny fumbled through July against some of the lesser offenses in the league - namely OAK, SEA and KC and his ERA shot back up to 5.07 thanks to batters hitting .296 against him that month.
That has been Brad Penny's story all season. He'll give you five mediocre innings and hold the other team to 3 or 4 runs... and then he'll look to the offense and bullpen to secure the W.
As good as our bullpen is, this is not the kind of guy I want on the mound with the season on the line.
I tried to find a reason for Penny's struggles in the stats, but the stats seemed to contradict themselves:
Opponents are hitting just .249 against Penny with runners on base... yet he owns a 7.36 ERA through 51+ innings.
His ERA drops to 3.07 with the bases empty, but opponents are hitting a staggering .322 against him in those instances.
His ground ball to fly ball ratio is almost dead even at 0.96, but the fly ball percentage is up - 42% compared to 2007 when he went 16-4 and had a 48.7/30.8 GB/FB ratio.
What the hell does all this mean?
It appears to me that Penny is not getting as grounders as he used to and all those flyballs are turning into homers - 13 already this season, on pace for a career high 23. He's been equally mediocre both at home and away, but the 8 homers in 49 innings at Fenway makes me wonder if righties are using the Monster against Penny.
One other factoid has me curious. In 2007, Fangraphs says he was using his change up 15% of the time and his curveball 12% of the time. The chart says Penny has abandoned the change up andis using the curve almost 20% of the time and a spli-fingered fastball 7% of the time.
I'm not John Farrel, but it seems to me that opponents are geared up and ready for the fastball and/or split-finger - hence all the contact/homeruns. Maybe it's time to bring the change up back and get some of these guys out on theor front foot...
By now I'm sure your all looking for the Bottom Line (if you haven't fallen asleep yet), so here it is:
Tim Wakefield is suffering from a pinched nerve that is making his left leg numb. He's otherwise healthy, but doctors say a siatic nerve issue can take as long as 6-8 weeks to recover from.
Clay Buchholz has not been able to convert his success in Triple A to the majors. He's got a 6.05 ERA in four big leage starts and is averaging 4.77 innings per start thanks to the same lack of command he displayed in 2008 - 11 walks in 19.1 innings.
Daisuke Matsuzaka will join the team in Tampa and continue to throw from 120 feet in an effort to strengthen his arm... I won't be shocked to see him pitch again in September, but I will be shocked to see him pitch effectively in September.
And the John Smoltz experiment is a bust. The guy thrived on pinpoint control for 19 years, but without it, he's just a 40 year old guy throwing 80-90 MPH meatballs.
That means Brad Penny needs to man up and become a reliable No. 3. He couldn't ask for a better opportunity with Tampa and New York schedule this week. And since both games are away, we can test my theory that he is more effective outside of Fenway Park... though the new Yankee Stadium (aka. The Wind Tunnel) could prove equally troublesome if the flyball percentage stays up.
A week from today, Theo's house will be getting TP'd for not trading for Halladay or RSN will be singing Penny's praises after two bigs... only time will tell.
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