From what I can tell he looks into the dugout before each pitch and relays that to the pitcher. If that is 100% of the time, I'm not sure, but it sure seems like it.Are the piches being called from the dugout now? If so, I did not realize that. Regardless, no, I am not blaming the catcher for a pitcher's particular ineptitude. But if we can agree that catchers *can* make a difference . . . .the question is why/how?
There's a whole lot of chicken-and-egg speculation here (by me), but anyway.....if a pitcher has less confidence in a catcher catching a ball in the dirt does he throw it a bit higher? Does he go more toward the middle if he doesn't think the catcher can turn it into a strike as effectively? Is there any reasonable analogy at all to Tom Brady and comfort level with his receivers?
The bottom line for me is that Vazquez is a million times a better catcher than is Swihart (he may be 999,999 times better than almost every catcher).. That can only help a pitching staff that needs help.
And Vazquez is definitely a better pitch framer. He passes the eye test, and the numbers back it up. But the bombs that were hit against the Sox pitchers were down the pipe meatballs that missed the glove placement. And when Kelly was walking everyone in sight, he was missing the glove by a lot too. The real bad mess-ups we're all frustrated by were not caused by framing. They were pitchers flat out failing. The catcher isn't helping that. Swihart's defensive shortcomings are not the cause of these losses. It's a pretty small factor in them, if it factors at all. Pitchers doing their job competently is a much, much bigger issue in unconnected ways. After a few trips through the rotation we can see if it has just been bad luck and the pitchers straighten out. But I can't see how you can blame Blake for their underperformance so far. Especially when the relievers have been mostly fine throwing to him. Kimbrel has had one bad outing, and Noe Ramirez has always walked too many people, so you can't say they Blake's fault.