In honor of Max Scherzer’s 14 strikeout effort, here are 14 thoughts/items/factoids about today’s 10-2 much needed win against Oakland.

1. The progress that Scherzer displayed in his 15 AAA innings was very much transferrable and nearly as effective. The velocity that came from his newly reacquired proper arm slot was the biggest difference. Just see the data from the pitch f/x system below which compares his last start to Sunday’s effort.

   

2. And just because I took the time to generate the chart, here is the plot of Scherzer’s horizontal and vertical movement. The larger the dot, the faster the pitch.
3. The one downside to all the strikeouts was an inflated pitch count in the 6th inning. While matching Mickey Lolich’s 16 K record would have been sweet, it was time for Scherzer to come out after the walk and the hit by pitch. The gaudy K total and the shorter outing meant that according to Baseball Tonight, Scherzer’s percentage of outs recorded via strikeout was the highest since 1900.
4. Things were less tenuous though because the offense finally perked up against Dallas Braden and the managed to score early and late despite failing in R3L2O situations.
5. The production came throughout the lineup, which was a welcome change. Two homers came from the bottom half of the lineup. Of course the fact that Carlos Guillen resides in the bottom half should certainly help things. Brandon Inge contributed with the bat as well with a homer and 2 doubles.
6. This deserves it’s own bullet as well.  Gerald Laird had a multi hit game. It was just his 3rd multi hit game of the season.
7. Meanwhile Miguel Cabrera made a case for player of the week, despite playing in only 3 games. He hit another homer as part of a 4 hit day and has driven in 8 runs the last 3 days padding his RBI lead which had narrowed and pushing his slugging percentage to .670.
8. Magglio Ordonez continues to rip the ball, and had 2 well hit balls caught. It was only fitting that a jam shot fell for him in the 8th inning to make up for it.
9. One guy who has had quietly had a few rough outings is Phil Coke. He was hit hard on Friday night but escaped. He gave up both runs in Sunday’s game.
10. I said I was going to watch Joel Zumaya’s velocity after he was a little shy of his “normal” velocity in Los Angeles. Today he maxed out at 102.2 and averaged 99.78. I’m going to stop watching his velocity.
11. When Zumaya struggles people complain that he gets too fastball happy. Today he threw the heater 29 out of 32 times and didn’t get the curve over for a strike. Yet nobody is complaining today.
12. Baseball-Reference Blog » Blog Archive » Scherzer’s 14 Strikeouts
13. Johnny Damon drew 2 more walks today (and picked up a hit). Coming into today Damon and Ordonez were tied for 10th in the AL. They both hit in front of Miguel Cabrera. Kind of makes you wonder about lineup protection and having a threat to insure guys get pitches to hit.
14. I’m out of stuff. Good thing I got to 14.

Something is wrong with Max Scherzer. Tonight’s first inning was some kind of awful as Scherzer couldn’t locate his offspeed pitches and his fastball wasn’t so deceptive either. It’s one thing to have a rough go of it, but two of the last three starts saw the Tigers out of the game after the first inning.

Even when Scherzer could get ahead, he couldn’t finish off a hitter. He hung a 2 strike change-up to Marco Scutaro. He got to two strikes on Dustin Pedroia before Pedroia landed one in the bullpen. He went ahead of Kevin Youkilis 0-2 and 4 pitches later it was a walk.

I don’t know what is wrong with Scherzer, but something isn’t right. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear before his next start that he has been tipping pitches and they think they’ve got it figured out. Or that it was a simple mechanical fix. Or that Scherzer has a shoulder or elbow injury.

Scherzer isn’t getting hitters out with any sort of consistency, and this goes far beyond the fact he went from the NL to the AL. He has lost nearly 2mph off his fastball from last year, and his other pitches have seen similar drops. If it is measurement error, so be it. But if the result is due to injury and/or mechanics there is a larger problem. The Hardball Times examined the impact of velocity on runs allowed and did find a relationship, but even then it wouldn’t account for all of Scherzer’s struggles this year.

The Rest

• The Tigers exercised patience and generated some baserunners by picking up six walks. Unfortunately Magglio Ordonez was the only Tigers hitter able to get hits (3 for 3 with a walk). The Tigers had a few chances to narrow the gap but couldn’t get the big hit.
• Miguel Cabrera was completely stymied for the first time in awhile.
• Brennan Boesch managed an RBI single on a breaking pitch low and away. It was a great pitch, and a better piece of hitting.
• Brad Thomas had a very nice game, eating 3 innings. He threw 30 of his 43 pitches for strikes and fanned 3 and didn’t walk a hitter.
• This didn’t impact the game at all, but in the first inning Austin Jackson led off with a walk. Granted, the Tigers were down 5 but Jackson is fast and Victor Martinez has thrown out 11% of runners this year. Yet Jackson stayed tethered to first base. I don’t understand this.

Max Scherzer didn’t really give his team a chance to win, and that’s pretty much the game story in a nutshell. Speaking of shells, Scherzer was pummeled early and often and the Tigers were down 7-0 nothing before they even got their bearings at Target Field.

In the first inning Jim Thome drove in the first run on a pitch low and away. Thome did a nice job with a tough pitch. The rest were pitches up and in the middle and pitches that Scherzer can’t make.

In Max’s defense Jim Reynolds wouldn’t give him calls on the edges of the strike zone, but Scherzer has to do a better job. Especially after the Tigers started to chip away. In a way the 5th inning which featured 2 walks after the Tigers had cut it to a 4 run deficit were just as damaging as the early inning barrage.

• Brad Thomas didn’t exactly clean up Scherzer’s mess, but he did go 3.2 innings to finish the game.
• Austin Jackson is damn entertaining to watch. He ended up with another 3 hits and a strike out free game. He has 5 games without a strikeout, 4 of them are against the Twins.
• Brennan Boesch continues to impress at the plate with 2 more hits of his own and he just missed his 2nd homer.
• Detroit went 0 for 11 with RISP. A couple of those outs did plate runs, but it also kep the rallies short and harmless.

Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins – May 3, 2010 – MLB.com Wrap

Hey, at least Scott Baker can’t be quite as good as Francisco Liriano was last night can he?

Baker goes for the Twins after getting beat up for 10 hits and 6 runs in 5.2 innings against Cleveland his last time out. Baker has continued his reverse platoon splits from last year into this young season where right handers hit him better than left handers.

Max Scherzer is coming off a strong outing that earned him a quality start on a 7 K, 2 BB, 7 inning effort in Arlington. He’s never started against the Twins.

Your lefty heavy lineup is:

1. Jackson, CF
2. Damon, DH
3. Ordonez, RF
4. Cabrera, 1B
5. Boesch, LF
6. Inge, 3B
7. Raburn, 2B
8. Avila, C
9. Santiago, SS