Knuckle Curve » no_hitter

Buchholz Tosses No-Hitter

Geoff Young — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 02:17:55 +0000

With just one previous big-league start under his belt, Boston Red Sox right-hander Clay Buchholz no-hit the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday night at Fenway. If I’m not mistaken, Wilson Alvarez was the last pitcher to throw a no-no in his second career start — on August 11, 1991, against — you guessed it, the Orioles.

Whatever the case, congrats to Buchholz…

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Verlander Tosses No-No

Geoff Young — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:36:42 +0000

Detroit Tigers right-hander Justin Verlander spun a no-hitter Tuesday night against the Milwaukee Brewers. Yep, he shut down the likes of J.J. Hardy, Prince Fielder, and Geoff Jenkins for a full nine innings. Walked Bill Hall all three times, but hey, a guy’s got to know his limitations.

Verlander fanned 12 batters on the night. You know how many pitches he threw? 112. That’s sick.

Another thing that’s sick is Verlander’s improvement this season. He was outstanding as a rookie, but check this out:

Justin Verlander, 2006 vs 2007
Year	Age	IP/GS	ERA+	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	K/9
Stats are through games of June 12, 2007, and are courtesy of Baseball-Reference.
2006	23	6.20	125	9.05	1.02	2.90	6.00
2007	24	6.46	156	6.96	0.75	3.21	7.29

Talk about nice trends. Verlander’s hits and homers are down, his strikeouts are up, and he’s working deeper into games. Oh, and he hasn’t reached his physical prime. What’s not to like?

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Buehrle’s No-No: Did He Get the Calls?

Geoff Young — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:35:49 +0000

Did Mark Buehrle get the calls? That’s the question Anthony asks at Friar Watch. Using MLB’s Enhanced Gameday data, he examines Buehrle’s no-hitter from last week and determines that for the most part, the plate umpire did a good job calling balls and strikes for Buehrle and his opposite number, the Rangers’ Kevin Millwood.

The charts are fascinating, but what I really appreciate are the insights that go with them:

Without having seen the game I’ll hazard a few guesses based on the data: Buehrle’s pitches are all over the place, when I see that it usually means the pitcher has good movement on his pitches. A high number of pitches up and in to right handed hitters would indicate a willingness to come inside, keeping batters from crowding the plate. Millwood is clustered in spots and overall is much closer to the strike zone but he got hit hard that night. If you’re not getting the close calls early in the count you have to go with your fastball for a strike and the hitters can sit on it.

This is a great example of using available data to analyze the inner workings of a baseball game. Anthony suggests that Millwood might have been getting squeezed a little. If you look at the charts, you can see that several of Millwood’s pitches came in right at the upper edge of the strike zone but were called a ball. I wonder if some of this might be due to the difference in release points. Buehrle is a lefty, Millwood a righty. If batters pick up the ball differently coming out of each pitcher’s hand, then maybe the plate umpire does as well?

I don’t know the answer to that last question. Just thinking out loud here. Anyone have some insight they’d care to share?

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Buehrle Spins No-No

Geoff Young — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 16:17:14 +0000

Did anyone see the Mark Buehrle no-hitter coming? You, with the hand up in the back — you’re lying.

In case you missed it, Buehrle faced the minimum against Texas on Wednesday night. The only baserunner against him came on a walk to Sammy Sosa, who promptly was picked off first base.

Others will analyze this to death, I’m sure, but I would just like to point out two things:

Buehrle was knocked out of a start two weeks ago courtesy of a line drive off the bat of Cleveland’s Ryan Garko. Nice recovery, eh?
No pitcher in the American League allowed more hits than Buehrle did in 2006. Or 2005. In fact, Buehrle has ranked #1 or #2 on that list in each of the past four seasons.

Once again, baseball is a very strange game where strange things happen. I have no idea how Buehrle could have done this.

Oh, and congratulations.

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