Last night was James Shields’ night, plain and simple. Forget the fanfare surrounding the three players who returned to the lineup Tuesday — including Luke Scott who was playing his first game of the 2013 season. And forget that Alex Cobb seemed like a reasonable replacement for Big Game James. No, this was all Shields’ game. And to be fair Juego G deserved that W. With the exception of a shaky first inning, Shields dominated Tampa Bay, while the Rays pitching and defense relinquished yet another early lead.
Shields was, well…the Shields we all know so well; the Shields who is so good at collecting himself after a rocky inning only to right the ship, the bulldog that isn’t afraid to challenge hitters. More confounding however, was The Great Unraveling that was Alex Cobb’s start.
To say that Cobb sailed through the first five innings is like saying concrete is hard. Cobb was outstanding early on. Giving up four hits in the front five innings while striking out five, Cobb retired nine batters in a row at one point. But the bottom fell out with two outs in the sixth. Cobb gave up six consecutive hits (three singles, two doubles, and a two-run Mike Moustakas home-run to right field) and four runs. And with the Rays down 4-2 in the sixth, Joe Maddon made the decision to pull Cobb for Jamey Wright.
So what happened?
If you listened to the Big Dog Steve Duemig, a pair of theories were pounded into your head: A) Cobb was Tipping his pitches, and/or B) Shields relayed insider information to the Royals hitters.
Granted Cobb had been known to tip his pitches in the past, I really don’t think that to be the case last night. Nor do I think it’s reasonable to assume that Cobb’s unraveling was solely predicated on Shields insider information. Sure, I’ll give credence to the thought that the Royals knew what was coming as BA noted, however I think they knew what was coming because he became too predictable with his curveball, not because of Duemig’s theories. Enter Robbie Knopf of Rays Colored Glasses,
Through 5 innings, Alex Cobb had been rolling, allowing no runs on 4 hits, striking out 5 while walking none. A major part of that was his curveball. He was able to use it to continuously to keep hitters off-balance, using it 6 times in the first 5 innings to get called strikes, all on the first pitch or second pitch of at-bats. Then Cobb started Alcides Escobar with a curveball for a strike in the 6th on his way to forcing him to groundout. At that point, the Royals had seen enough. Cobb was keeping Kansas City hitters off-balance with his curveball, but it really was not that great of a pitch, being left in hittable zones far too often. They only couldn’t hit it because they weren’t expecting it. But they had a trick in their back pocket to counteract that–sitting curveball on first pitches and on 0-1.
According to Brooks Baseball, Cobb threw his curveball 40% of the time on the first pitch and 36% of the time on 0-1, both more than any of his other pitches. And the Royals were not going to let him get away with getting ahead in the count against them on a mediocre offering. With 2 outs and nobody on in the 6th, Eric Hosmer saw Cobb’s first-pitch curveball coming and smacked it to left field for a double. Lorenzo Cain wasn’t fooled either when Cobb went to the curve on 0-1 against him and laced a single to left field to make it a 2-1 game. And with Cobb forsaking his curveball knowing that it wasn’t fooling anyone, he threw first-pitch fastballs to each of the next three hitters, missing each time, and on 1-0 was forced to resort to the pitch he used the least in that count, his split-change. The results were disastrous. Mike Moustakas drilled a homer to make it 3-2 before Jeff Francoeur doubled and Salvador Perez singled to make it 4-2. Jamey Wright came in to finally escape the jam. The message here is simple: Cobb has to change his approach or hitters will take advantage.
Alex Cobb curveball location (Courtesy of Texas Leaguers)
As you can see in the chart above, good number of Cobb’s curveballs are nestled nicely in the zone. He isn’t particularly deceptive with the location of his breaking pitches. Rather Cobb fools the batter with the decision of when to throw breaking pitches. Cobb initially found a ton of success by leaning on his curveball 76% of the time early in the count (0-0, or 0-1). However, it was inevitable that the league would eventually adjust to Cobb, and that the Royals did in spades last night. Cobb’s task now is to find a way to adjust back. It will be interesting to see how he adjusts in a mere five days from now.
Moving forward.
The New What Next
Jeremy Hellickson will get the start Wednesday night against Luis Mendoza and the Royals, as the Rays attempt to against get within a game of .500. You can read more on the match-up here.
Rays 5/1/13 Starting Lineup
Jennings CF
Joyce RF
Zobrist 2B
Longoria 3B
Loney 1B
Escobar SS
Scott DH
Lobaton C
Johnson LF
Hellickson RHP
Noteworthiness
After pulling an 0’fer in his first night back from the DL, Luke Scott is again in the lineup, hitting seventh. I mean, anyone’s better than Shelley Duncan, right? The Rays have Kelly Johnson in LF and Ben Zobrist at 2B (Joyce in RF) with a fly ball pitcher — Jeremy Hellickson — on the mound.
Matt Joyce’s first inning jack Tuesday night kept the Rays streak of (now) 14 consecutive games with a home run alive.
James Loney had his fifth game of the season with three or more hits Tuesday night, tying Jed Lowrie of the Athletics for most in majors.
We LOVE the must read article by DRaysBay’s Daniel Russell titled, The Problem with Assumptions. Here’s a little snippet:
Every year, Tampa Bay fans have to endure article after article slamming the area for its poor attendance, with the not-so-subtle undertone that fans down here just don’t care. Well, we do care. We do exist. And we don’t appreciate our city—our fans—our team being slapped around like this.
Last night was James Shields’ night, plain and simple. Forget the fanfare surrounding the three players who returned to the lineup Tuesday — including Luke Scott who was playing his first game of the 2013 season. And forget that Alex Cobb seemed like a reasonable replacement for Big Game James. No, this was all Shields’ game. And to be fair Juego G deserved that W. With the exception of a shaky first inning, Shields dominated Tampa Bay, while the Rays pitching and defense relinquished yet another early lead.