May 22, 2008
Better or Luckier?
Ian Kennedy allowed one one in six innings this evening, and the Yankees eventually went on to win 2-1 on a single by Robinson Cano in the bottom of the ninth. Did Kennedy's performance tonight indicate an improvement? I don't think so. Kennedy walked four and struck out four. His walks and strikeouts have been close to even all year. He threw a little under 60% of his pitches for strikes, nothing outstanding or special there. The difference tonight was that he allowed just four hits. Most of the season he's allowed more hits than innings pitched. That could just be good luck in batters putting the ball in play at batters.
Compare Kennedy to Andrew Miller, whose improvement came from cutting down on walks and increasing his strikeouts. Until I see something like that from Kennedy, I'll remain skeptical that he's actually improving.
Still, tonight it was certainly better for the Yankees that he was lucky instead of good.
Posted by David Pinto at
11:04 PM
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I was at the game tonight and I don't think it was just a matter of luck. For the most part, there were no hard hit balls off him, just harmless flyouts, popups, etc. He definitely needs to cut down on his walks, but I thought he showed some improvement. Most importantly, he was able to keep it together when he loaded the bases with one out in the 3rd inning. In his past outings, that 3rd inning would've been the end of him. Not tonight.
YM: I was at the game too, and many of those "harmless flyouts" were hard hit line drives. I completely agree with David's assessment here. Kennedy was on thin ice.
He may not have been Cy Young, but it's definitely something a young pitcher can use as a building block.
The results are the results and if nothing else, it should be a definite confidence booster.
Give the kid a break and go find something else to be negative about!!
he faced a lineup that had one hitter at .286, 2 at .263 and all the others below. He was lucky against a bad lineup and will probably get another chance against the same weak Orioles in a few days. Not buying it.
Interesting comments, esp the 1st 2. Too bad data like 'ball speed off bat' isn't collected for all games/hitters, then we'd know which fan is correct.
Re: the luck aspect, I wish David would write a piece (or link to it if he already has) defining what he thinks is luck. I think he is out to lunch on the concept. If a pitcher has a poor K/BB ratio yet he was effective - its luck!! There is no other explanation! This is a simplistic interpretation. Dave should consider other metrics before throwing luck around.
