Let's Kut to the Chase

absintheofmalaise

absintheofmalaise

too many flowers
Dope
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Mar 16, 2005
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The gran facenda
For the third straight night the Sox have had an outstanding outing from a starter. This time it was from Kutter Crawford. 84 pitches through six innings with one run thanks to a throwing error in the first, one BB, and 7 Ks. Good pitch mix. Only threw the splitter twice. Relied heavily on the sweeper. Here's his pitch chart from Baseball Savant.
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Reverse Curve

Reverse Curve

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Sep 11, 2021
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Kutter looked amazing tonight, following successive solid starts from Bello and Pivetta. I am so bullish on this pitching staff, and kind of finding it hard to control my optimism (giddiness) with the club's emphasis on pitching development. There seems to be a vision, implementation and buy in from the staff, that I have not seen in my years following the Sox.
 
chrisfont9

chrisfont9

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Reverse Curve said:
Kutter looked amazing tonight, following successive solid starts from Bello and Pivetta. I am so bullish on this pitching staff, and kind of finding it hard to control my optimism (giddiness) with the club's emphasis on pitching development. There seems to be a vision, implementation and buy in from the staff, that I have not seen in my years following the Sox.
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The instant results are great. The proof will be in durability. TBD…
 
bernie carb 33

bernie carb 33

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Feb 2, 2024
68
Really good pitching first three days, you couldn't have imagined this a week ago. But with your best hitter not healthy, where is the offense gonna come from? Great pitching by Seattle. We can't get to Oakland and LA soon enough to get the bats in rhythm.

O'Neill off to a good start, but I was surprised to see him platooned so early. can't recall if he's nursing an injury or whether his lefty-righty splits are that off.
'
 
YTF

YTF

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@bernie carb 33 Cora likely saw it as a good spot to sit O'Neill. There was a stretch from March 14-26 where he didn't play in the field due to calf tightness and considering they play seven straight games before they see a day off it's likely O'Neill was going to sit one or two of them. Being able to play all 3 OF positions, I expect we might see O'Neill rotating through those slots in the next couple of days to give Duran and Rafaela days of during this stretch with Abreu getting a couple more starts in RF.
 
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absintheofmalaise

absintheofmalaise

too many flowers
Dope
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Mar 16, 2005
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The gran facenda
Last night Crawford was pitching well until he wasn't, and became the first starter to not make it through the fifth inning. Going into the fifth with a 4-0 lead he promptly walked Sano on 4 pitches. K 'd Moniak. O'Hoppe singled and Neto flied out. He then walked Rendon on 5 pitches and Schanuel on 4 to load the bases. He just couldn't find the zone at all. Weissert then came in and got the last out.

He changed up his pitch mix from the first game when his 4 seam was third in the mix and he relied more on the sweeper and cutter. From Baseball Savant. Obviously much more effective against Seattle than the Angels. Not sure if that was because he didn't have the feel for the breaking pitches as much or if they decided to change his pitch mix so the Angels wouldn't be able to rely on the scouting reports from the first game as much.
Last night
80591
First game
80592
 
Rovin Romine

Rovin Romine

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SSS, but per Savant, his cutter is his least effective pitch in terms of batted ball outcomes.

In many ways game #2 was more like his average 2023 game: 40% FB4, just under 30% cutters, the rest assorted breaking. Here the sweeper appears to be the go-to breaking pitch.

I have to wonder if part of the key to going deepr into games is to throw fewer 94/95 MPH fastballs.
 
geoflin

geoflin

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Anyone know of any studies about injury risk for short arm pitchers like Crawford? Looks like it might be easier on shoulder but harder on elbow.
 
Yaz4Ever

Yaz4Ever

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I was listening earlier and Castiglione said something about Kutter possibly hurting himself on the final out. Please tell me this didn't happen.
 
The Gray Eagle

The Gray Eagle

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MuppetAsteriskTalk said:
TV broadcast said he turned his ankle a bit. Didn't seem too bad but I guess you never know.
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Good injury news for a change-- they will only have to amputate one of his legs!

(Whoops, just making a lame joke because I thought this was the game thread, sorry about that!)

Crawford looked good most of the time out there, but seemed to just lose his control for stretches of his last 2 innings. Like his last inning in Anaheim, when he suddenly couldn't throw a strike.
This time he escaped both jams-- with a little help from the home plate ump in one of them.
 
Lose Remerswaal

Lose Remerswaal

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The Gray Eagle said:
Good injury news for a change-- they will only have to amputate one of his legs!

(Whoops, just making a lame joke because I thought this was the game thread, sorry about that!)

Crawford looked good most of the time out there, but seemed to just lose his control for stretches of his last 2 innings. Like his last inning in Anaheim, when he suddenly couldn't throw a strike.
This time he escaped both jams-- with a little help from the home plate ump in one of them.
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If this was intentional, then well done.
 
Al Zarilla

Al Zarilla

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Red(s)HawksFan said:
Noteworthy about Dave Ferriss...those were the first five starts of his MLB career. All complete game wins.
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Ferris did it in a war year though, when a lot of great/good opposing hitters were not playing like Joe D, Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, Hank Greenberg and many more.

OTOH, Ferris didn’t have his good defenders behind him like Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky and others, and of course Ted Williams’ bat.
 
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TomRicardo

TomRicardo

rusty cohlebone
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Kutter has been a legitimate top of the rotation starter. His Cutter, Sweeper, and Split Finger are all extremely positive value pitches. His four seam fastball (which like everyone on the Red Sox he is throwing less) is not getting the whiffs it did last year but still isn't being lit up.

This is trending from last year.
 
P

plolli

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Jul 31, 2005
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And if Houck goes six innings without giving up an earned run on Tuesday, he'd slot in at #5 on the lowest ERA list.
 
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