One up: is it possible that Pedro's suck-itude this year is because of tipped pitches? Possibly:
As he suspected, Pedro Martinez determined he was tipping his pitches in his past two starts - both lopsided losses.
Martinez makes his first start tonight since getting tagged by the Yankees last Friday, and new pitching coach Dan Warthen is predicting a Pedro rebirth.
"His stuff is better than it has been in two years," Warthen said yesterday. "He's in the low 90s, and all of his pitches are in order. He still has pinpoint control. I'm telling you, he's about to take off."
I'll see it when I believe it, but it would be good to sort out whether he's stunk this year due to (a) residual injury he's not disclosing, (b) just getting old and no longer good, or (c) tipped pitches.
One down: After causing alarms to go off Monday by citing "dead arm" as a reason for his awful showing in a 7-1 loss to the Cardinals, John Maine wondered yesterday what all fuss was about.
"It's no big deal," he said. "It's just a little fatigue."
Hmmm, no big deal? If Maine were older and/or had pitched more innings, I'd agree, it's expected and no big deal. When you're only 27 and have thrown as few innings as he has this year (only 98 so far, 29th in NL, averaging just under 6 IP per outing), I'd say fatigue showing up this early IS a concern.
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5 comments:
Fatigue may be a legit issue--remember, even tho Maine is 29th in innings he is 1st in pitches per start...
They need to develop an out pitch for that guy so he stops ringing up huge pitch counts and getting pulled in 5th inning..
Last night they were saying Warthen's telling Johnny-boy to go back to using the ol' #2.
It's gonna take a bit of time before he really throws it w/ confidence though...
I love the deuce.
Love it love it love IT.
Looks like pedro's "tipping pitches" again tonight. I guess that's the new euphemism.
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