Official. Reds add Sonny Gray to Roark & Wood Added.

[CJD]

(01-23-2019, 12:20 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: The root concept, in my understanding, is preventing the hitters from gaining a familiarity with the starting pitcher.

If you look at starters' paths through the opposing line up, across the board, their 3rd time through the lineup is when they start ceding hits and runs.

If you have a pitcher open the game, typically a person who is favorably matched with the opposing team's top 3 to 5 hitters, you can get that first go through out of the way, ideally in the first 2 innings, and then your starter can reach the 8th inning without seeing a 3rd run through of the line up. Then you can hand the ball to the closer and never hit, or risk hitting, the fated 3rd time through the lineup for a single pitcher.

I don't know if it has a significant impact compared to, say, having your starter go through the line up twice and handing the reigns to a reliever then a closer (rather than this order of reliever, starter, closer) but it certainly helped Derek Johnson distinguish himself and I don't see why he'd stop now.

Here's an example of how the Opener made a real difference for the starting pitcher:
https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/5/22/17379048/tampa-bay-rays-sergio-romo-kevin-cash-opener

In this scenario, the top of the Angels' lineup is a bunch of right handers. The scheduled starter is a left handed pitcher. So the team decided to roll Sergio Romo, a right handed pitcher with a penchant for restricting righties very well, out in the first inning to get through some of the Angels' best hitters.

By having Romo pitch to the first 3 batters, he allowed his starter to make it through 23 batters and 6 and 2/3rds innings. 5 of the Angels' players saw the starting pitcher a 3rd time, but it was the #4 through 8 hitters, not the #1 through 3 hitters that it would have been had he started the game.

So will that be our new philosophy? I can't say. But it's interesting and a wrinkle that our new pitching coach is likely to play with this season, probably with better results than your traditional pitching method.

Quote:Teams pitch relievers, in general, because they want livelier, fresher, and often more effective—at least in short bursts—arms to combat a team’s toughest hitters in high-leverage situations. But the most challenging inning for any staff isn’t the ninth, or the eighth, or the middle innings when a starter approaches his pitch count limit. It’s the first inning, when teams hit better than any other because it’s the only frame in which a lineup’s top hitters are guaranteed to bat. Batters have hit 10 percent better than league average in the first this season, which is the best mark in any inning.