Baseball Time in Arlington charts Kevin Millwood’s increase in pitches per inning throughout the season.
While the ballooning nature of Millwood’s 2009 pitch counts remain a focal point of concern, what’s particularly disconcerting with respect to this graph is that Millwood’s inning-by-inning workload is also ballooning, with the corollary being that greater fatigue and diminished performance is to be naturally expected when a starting pitcher is still consistently logging 110-120 pitches every fifth day, but is simultaneously becoming more inefficient with those pitches. He’s effectively getting less out of more right now, something which can’t possibly benefit Millwood in terms of maintaining a confident demeanor and positive body language, and the cut-throat, immensely competitive nature of baseball shows no mercy to vulnerable pitchers.
Millwood’s ERA is 1.25 runs higher after the All-Star Break than before. His walks have gone way up, one reason for the higher pitch counts per inning.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:51 am | Pitchers | Permalink | 2 Comments
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September 8th, 2009 @ 9:23 am
Kevin Millwood has won only two games since June 26th. He has given up 20 walks in his last 34 innings with 21 strikeouts. He walked 8 in his first 45 innings of the season. He has given up 17 runs in last 22 innings and allowed 27 hits.
September 8th, 2009 @ 10:20 am
He’s also gained about 20 lbs. since the beginning of the season. There’s a lot of talk around D/FW about the status of his conditioning program.