Brandon Morrow’s strikeout rate has been in decline the past three years; 26 percent in 2011, 21.4 percent in 2012 and 15.3 percent this year. However, he looked like an extremely effective pitcher, varying speeds effectively with his fastball and utilizing his secondary pitches on both sides of the plate; the splitter to lefties and the slider to righties. He was cruising along until he almost head Nolan Reimold in the head; after that he last control of the strike zone and was eventually pulled from the game.
With a pitching matchup of Matt Harvey and Ted Lilly I easily thought the best pitching performance would come from Harvey, but I was more impressed with Lilly. Lilly’s stuff isn’t close to what it used to be earlier in his career, but his fastball, which he threw on both sides of the plate, sat 87-89 mph. He pitched inside to righties a lot with his fastball, which was really impressive. He threw breaking balls when the hitter expected a fastball and fastballs when batter’s were expecting breaking balls. Harvey threw the least amount of fastballs all year, throwing it only 50 percent of the time. Instead of the fastball, he incorporated the slider, changeup and curveball more. Of those pitches, the changeup flashed the most promise, showing good fade and arm action. Harvey didn’t get the desired outcome last night, but I saw it as an attempt to refine his secondary offerings, which will allow him to maintain his success.
Roy Halladay was primarily a two-pitch pitcher throwing his fastball and curveball 70 percent of the time. Despite the solid box score of six innings, eight strikeouts, two walks and one hit his control was loose for the majority of the game and was aided by the poor approach by the Pirates hitters. If owned Halladay I would sell high.
Brandon League blew his first save with the Dodgers last night, but the Carl Crawford, who dropped a catchable fly ball, was more responsible than League was. I’m not worried about League; he’s not a good reliever, but he should have a fairly long leash.
Stephen Strasburg is fine. He had one bad inning, the first, but was extremely good after that.
