05-18-2021, 08:12 PM
Luis Castillo has always struggled on team's best hitters at the top of the rotation.
Batting 1st: .278/.342/.460 (.803 OPS)
Batting 2nd: .278/.357/.478 (.835 OPS)
That's career numbers vs Castillo. So nothing new there, just a worse case of it than normal. Sure seems most of his problems are mental rather than physical.
Whatever he's doing, it's simply not fooling people. He is allowing contact on 80% of his pitches, up about 10% from his career norm, and his swinging strikes are down about 4%. Maybe tipping pitches? Or just not executing? Don't know.
He's allowing contact on 70.6% of his pitches OUT of the strike zone. That's 20.6% more than his All Star year in 2019. Maybe not enough movement, or I don't know. They're seeing it pretty well.
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I think Gray's problem is he has been throwing more and more balls in the dirt and people are simply just catching onto it. In 2019 when he went to the AS Game for the Reds, he had 7 WP in 175.1 IP. In 2020, he led the NL in WP with 7 in just 56.0 IP.
Now in 2021, he already has an NL leading 7 in just 30.1 IP.
Like a hitter who gets enamored with the long ball and just swings out of their shoes after that, I think Gray got enamored with burying the ball into the dirt to get a swinging strike. Then he gets in trouble by throwing wild pitches into the dirt and he needs a strike to make up for it, which leads to his career high HR/9 rate.
Batting 1st: .278/.342/.460 (.803 OPS)
Batting 2nd: .278/.357/.478 (.835 OPS)
That's career numbers vs Castillo. So nothing new there, just a worse case of it than normal. Sure seems most of his problems are mental rather than physical.
Whatever he's doing, it's simply not fooling people. He is allowing contact on 80% of his pitches, up about 10% from his career norm, and his swinging strikes are down about 4%. Maybe tipping pitches? Or just not executing? Don't know.
He's allowing contact on 70.6% of his pitches OUT of the strike zone. That's 20.6% more than his All Star year in 2019. Maybe not enough movement, or I don't know. They're seeing it pretty well.
- - - - - - -
I think Gray's problem is he has been throwing more and more balls in the dirt and people are simply just catching onto it. In 2019 when he went to the AS Game for the Reds, he had 7 WP in 175.1 IP. In 2020, he led the NL in WP with 7 in just 56.0 IP.
Now in 2021, he already has an NL leading 7 in just 30.1 IP.
Like a hitter who gets enamored with the long ball and just swings out of their shoes after that, I think Gray got enamored with burying the ball into the dirt to get a swinging strike. Then he gets in trouble by throwing wild pitches into the dirt and he needs a strike to make up for it, which leads to his career high HR/9 rate.
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