Can Koji Save Us Again?

[Darnell's Son]

Can we get a quick analysis of Koji's performance last night

Just a quick little text-y answer, so as not to spoil a cool graphic analysis of a larger sample later ...

Fastballs at 86 mph, split-finger change at 78 mph, so an 8-mph difference between the pitches; the same difference as during his glorious 2013, but each pitch is now 4 mph slower. The horizontal movement looks a few inches larger than it did then, but with the tiny sample size from one stadium's system, I wouldn't put much weight on that. The 13 pitches were roughly equally divided between "out of the strike zone high" (fine), "out of the strike zone low" (splitters falling off the table, great) and "sitting near the middle of the plate" (not so great).

Can't argue with the results (3 up, 3 down, 2 via the strikeout), but those pitches down the middle give me a small amount of worry.

iayork did just this, looking at the former playoff hero to see if he can be an effective option as a bridge to Kimbrel.

 

[JimD]

Hopefully there will be enough opportunities to get Koji some medium and low-leverage innings to see if he can get closer to his pre-injury performance level. The trend certainly doesn't argue for throwing him into a high-leverage situation unless it's another game like Sunday's.

 

[uk_sox_fan]

One week later he's appeared 4 times - every other day - twice in the 9th and twice in the 8th in 1 low leverage, 2 medium lev and 1 high leverage situations.

The results have been spectacular:
4 IP 2H (both singles) 0R 0BB 3K