Games: Chicago White Sox, May 12: Judging the Royals with Lee Judge

Games » Chicago White Sox

May12

Luke mad

Seven innings, no runs, one walk and five strikeouts. How many people want to release Luke Hochevar now?

Like I said after Hochevar’s last start — which was awful — the Royals know Luke can do this. They don’t have a lot of good options when it comes to starting pitching, so they want to figure out whether they can get this kind of performance out of Hochevar more often. If they never saw this kind of pitching, they probably would give up on him — but they know it’s in there and need to find a way to get it out every five days.

After the game, manager Ned Yost said that Hochevar had used his four-seamer more often and stayed on the attack. Luke pitched like a 6-foot-5-inch power pitcher, with a mid-90s fastball and a terrific slider. The Royals need more Incredible Hulk out of Luke and less Bruce Banner. Maybe I can do something to tick him off right before his next start.

Game notes

• In the fourth inning, another shift worked. Chicago’s Adam Dunn lined out to Irving Falu. I haven’t been counting, but it seems as though the shifts have worked for the Royals more often than they have failed. Someone is doing his homework on spray charts.

• Once again, Hochevar used a “quick” pitch — I’m not really sure that’s the right thing to call it — because an illegal quick pitch is when the ball is delivered before the batter is set in the box. That’s not what Luke is doing. The hitter was set. Luke just cut down his windup and delivered the ball to home plate faster. Hochevar tends to do it when the hitter has two strikes. If the different delivery can freeze the hitter, Luke can get a cheap strikeout.

• Luke told me he uses the quick pitch as one more device to upset a hitter’s timing.

• Catcher Humberto Quintero took a foul tip directly off his mask. I’ve had the same thing happen when I was catching (it’s one of the reasons I no longer catch), and it’s a weird experience. It’s just like getting punched hard in the head (I’ve experienced that, too) with no surface impact. Your head just snaps back, and you’re on your backside wondering how you got there.

• Clint Hurdle says a foul tip off the mask will “rearrange the furniture.”

• In the eighth inning, Jarrod Dyson showed what he can do when he keeps the ball out of the air. White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez took a relaxed approach on a routine ground ball, and Dyson motored it into an infield single.

• I was there the day that reliever Greg Holland pitched an afternoon workout against live hitters before coming back on the Royals’ roster. Mike Moustakas had a couple of at-bats against Holland, then went to the dugout for a moment before going back to the batting cage. I asked Moose how Holland’s stuff was, and Mike said, “Ridiculous, as usual.” I’m pretty sure there are three White Sox hitters who would agree.

Back to Boston

When Boston bench coach Tim Bogar was in Kansas City, he and I talked about making out a lineup. The Red Sox had to decide whether to “stack” their left-handed hitters or “sandwich” them (put a right-handed hitter in-between). The Red Sox sandwiched them, and here’s why. During the Boston series the Royals had three lefties in the bullpen, Tim Collins, Jose Mijares and Tommy Hottovey. If the Red Sox stacked David Ortiz and Adrian Gonzalez, the Royals could have countered with a left-handed reliever three times in the latter stages of each game.

By sticking Cody Ross in between Ortiz and Gonzalez, Ned Yost might have to use up a left-handed pitcher, a right-handed pitcher and another lefty to get through Boston’s No. 3, 4 and 5 hitters. Use that combination once and Yost would have only one left-hander remaining in the pen. If Yost tried to slide by those three hitters using only one pitcher, the Red Sox would have had a matchup they liked in there somewhere.

So let’s go to the eighth inning of game one in that series. The score was 7-5. Kelvin Herrera struck out Mike Aviles to lead off the eighth inning. Herrera then walked Dustin Pedroia. Yost brought in Tim Collins to face David Ortiz. Collins was slow to the plate, so Pedroia stole second. That opened up first base, and the Royals intentionally walked Ortiz.

While Ortiz was at the plate, Pedroia turned to Chris Getz and said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that” because the steal took the bat out of Ortiz’s hands. But Yost left Collins in the game to face Cody Ross (Tim actually has done a little better against right-handers), but that was still a match-up that Boston liked, and Ross made the Royals pay with a two-run double.

So the moral of the story is this: Pay attention to how many lefties are in the opponent’s bullpen, how and when those pitchers are used and how your opponent reacts once all its lefties are used up.

One more thing from that series

Yost got Hochevar out of this game against the White Sox at the right time. Luke had a terrific outing. He threw seven shutout innings, got the Royals to the back end of the bullpen and left on a high note.

Boston manager Bobby Valentine failed to do the same in the second game of the series in Kansas City. Valentine got seven innings from starter Daniel Bard, and the Sox were leading 4-3 heading into the eighth inning. The Royals had left-handed Jarrod Dyson and Alex Gordon leading off that inning. Bard came back out and walked Dyson. Jeff Francoeur told me he was surprised Bard was still in the game, but he figured that once Bard walked Dyson, Boston would bring in a lefty to face Gordon. Bard stayed in the game and walked Gordon, too. Right-hander Matt Albers then came in the game and gave up a home run to Billy Butler.

So in the space of two batters Bard went from having a very good outing to losing a game. When you get mad at Ned Yost, just remember other managers aren’t perfect, either.

Comments

Steve Yeakel
1 year ago

Emotions are funny, we often tend to overreact to whatever happened most recently, myself included. Luke is Up and MeltDown Luke, so good what happened last night, but no reason to conclude that we will see Up Luke from now on. I was watching WGN broadcast, they confirmed what Foxtracks was showing, that early Luke was throwing a bunch of easy to hit pitches, but that Sox did not take advantage. The one encouraging thing I saw was him mouthing “go foul” on the late blast he gave up, and his quotes to Dutton that he needed to battle hard, and fight hard, so maybe some fire in his belly is being added to his mantra to “just execute my pitches.” That could be a good thing if it continues. No question it will be very good for the Royals if he can turn the corner, but he showed last year that even a good half season does not mean he has done so. I hope he does.
Lee Judge
1 year ago

Steve: You’re right, people tend to overreact to the latest thing. I’m not suggesting Luke is out of the woods—I don’t know that and he probably doesn’t either.

But a performance like last night’s helps explains why the Royals don’t give up on him. At some point, if Hochevar keeps this Jekyll and Hyde act up, the Royals may feel like they can’t afford the inconsistency.

Right now, desperate for starting pitching on a team that will have to battle to get back to .500, I imagine they’d like to see if they can fix him—permanently.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year ago

Lee, even a permanent fix to make a really good pitcher will give a stinker of a game every four or five starts. Hochevar has four good, three bad this year, which isn’t that unusual for an average or so pitcher. He looked physically comfortable last night, striding through his throws, finishing, so my guess is the ankle is good and they tweaked the mechanical issue and the result 95 mph and breaking stuff with bite. If he can give us three or four quality starts out of five and get back to the almost 7 innings he averaged last year, the team will be fine.
Lee Judge
1 year ago

Jim: I’m going to write a bit more about Hochevar after today’s game. I was aware of some other issues with Luke and didn’t have time to get into them last night.

But you’re right, even of they ‘fix’ him, he’ll still have bad starts. But if Luke can learn to limit the damage in those, that would go a long way toward fixing the problem.
Anthony L. Monley
1 year ago

Are there multiple guns recording pitch speed? I was in the park and never saw Hock throw a pitch above 91 or 92 on the scoreboard gun.

Also, to prove there are dumb fans everywhere, guy decked out in Royals gear wouldn’t sit down, and was openly facing the crowd and taunting Sox fans-I think I wanted him to sit down more than they did.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year ago

Speeds I saw were on the highlights at MLB. I’ll check Brooks Baseball and see what he has. Just by my eyeballs, 95 looked reasonable and that was a speed Luke was able to work at toward the end of last year, within his healthy range.

“But if Luke can learn to limit the damage in those

I have an odd view on “bad”, thinking it matters little if a starter gives up a huge bunch of runs or just too many runs. That’s why I like quality starts as a primary stat. With our defense and bullpen, if a starter gets six innings with three runs allowed we’ll be a .500 team. He’ll blow up some times, the opposing starter will have a meltdown, those things can even out. Now let’s see if Duffy learned something last night.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year ago

Brooks had him as high as 95 with most of his FBs 92-93mph. Looks like he was still working a little high, but good movement on the fastball.
Brian Robinson
1 year ago

Great stuff on Luke Hochevar. Looks like he used the force, the fastball and the kitchen sink last night. I got to watch the game at around 11:30pm (DVR) and permit me to say it’s much more enjoyable to be able to fastforward through commercials and calls to the pen. Hochevar looked very sharp displaying command with all of his pitches. Now let’s see him build from it and try and carry that positive mojo into his next outing. I firmly believe he was getting into a groove before that freak hit off the ankle. Although he should have gone on the DL it only took him a couple of starts to shake everything off and get back to pitching. His big challenge will be consistency.

I was glad to see Hosmer move down in the order. No way should he be sent down at this point. The guy is a major leaguer without a doubt and I think will be able to work out his hitting kinks lower in the lineup with less pressure to deliver in the clutch. Granted no player gets a pass from pressure but most would agree there’s added intensity and expectation from the #3 hitter (and to a lesser degree #4 hitter). I think the biggest boost will come mentally. Mental fatigue can drain you just as quickly physically as aerobic activity. He’ll regain his confidence batting lower and hopefully it will only last a short period.

One quick comment on Alcides Escobar. Like Billy Butler can rake, Escobar can snatch & throw. And it’s good to see his bat come around. It would be nice if he drew a few more walks but like in most people … patience comes with age.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year ago

Brian, good points on mental fatigue and Escobar’s glove.
Kevin Flanagan
1 year ago

“…if a starter gets six innings with three runs allowed we’ll be a .500 team.”

Jim, teams actually win about 75% of the games in which they get a quality start, another reason why I like the QS statistic as well.

Another thing, people like to complain about the QS saying that “A 4.50 ERA isn’t quality.” Well, actually, a 4.50 ERA is the worst you can do and still record a quality start. The average ERA in quality starts is a shade under 3.00 — there’s plenty of quality there.
Jim Fetterolf
1 year ago

Good info, Kevin. Can we give Luis Mendoza an honorary QS for 5.2/1 in relief of Danny today? That was important.

Judging the Royals