Game 111 - Zach Baby.. What's Wrong?

The Pirates managed all of 8 hits and 3 walks today yet scored 5 runs. Sounds impressive, huh? Not really.. the first inning run came from two errors - one by Rammy booting a grounder to him that wasn't called an error and an error on Cedeno. Another run came from three walks and a hit batter forcing in a run. Yet another run came from a single, another error on Cedeno, and a groundball out that scored one. If Paulino and McLouth hadn't each hit a home run, we probably shouldn't have scored any runs.

But it really didn't matter how many runs the Cubs gave us from their miscues because Zach Duke got hammered. Not in the traditional sense where balls left the yard all day long, but because of his inability to make quality pitches when he needed to. That has become Duke's downfall in 2006.. right? I'm not so sure..

Take today, for instance, Zach only retired 2 of the first 9 batters he faced - including Mark Prior who singled for his first hit of the year right back up the middle. By the time that first inning was over, Duke was down 4-0. After the first, Zach was able to shutout the Cubs over the next five innings allowing just one run on three hits.. and the run came from a solo HR in the 6th.

So far in 2006 Zach Duke has allowed 35% of all runs scored against him to be scored in the first inning. That is extremely high. So what's going on?

Consider these Duke stats since May 15:

-- in 8 home games, Duke has allowing 8 first inning runs (1.0 run per game average) against teams with an average .506 winning percentage.

-- of those 8 first inning runs allowed, 6 of them came against 3 teams with an average .548 winning percentage.

-- in 8 away games, Duke has allowed 14 first inning runs (1.75 runs per game average) against teams with an average .486 winning percentage.

-- of those 14 first inning allowed, 13 of them came against 4 teams with an average .454 winning percentage.

Those stats are suggestive that either Duke and Paulino are not properly  preparing for games they view as being 'easier' games (ie: watching film, scouring scouting reports on the opposing team batters or the home plate umpire, etc..), or the Pirate coaching staff and advance scouts are not as prepared to provide Duke and Paulino with appropriate game management material and decisions going into the 'easier' games.

Interestingly, in the 7 games Duke has faced NLWD teams after May 15, he has allowed only .6 average first inning runs (4 total runs allowed in 7 games) vs. 3.0 average first inning runs against NLCD teams (15 runs total in 5 games). That's a huge difference. For those that just want to know, it is .75 first inning runs for NLED teams.

My initial thought was that NLWD teams just don't hit left hand pitching that well but that isn't true - the NLWD has a .267 BA vs southpaws and the NLCD has a .270 BA (not including the Pirates). There's not much difference there. The NLED is well below the other two divisions.

Overall, Duke's stats are simply poor as these graphics will show you (thanks to fangraphs.com for the charts):

Look at the first chart which shows the type and rate of balls put in play on Duke. Amazingly, Duke has lowered the number of line drives allowed by nearly 7% (a 26% change between the two years) and increased the number of flyballs and groundballs allowed.

Dave Studeman wrote a great article at Hardball Times a couple of years ago that showed how often each of the three hit types went for an out and here is what he found:

As you can see, a line drive fell for a hit 74% of the time on average whereas a flyball fell for a hit only 21% of the time. Now consider Duke's 26% change in line drives hit in 2006 and that is a ton of hits that should have been converted to outs for Duke. Yet Duke's batting average allowed on balls in play (BABIP) has increased from .296 in 2005 to .335 in 2006.

How can that be?

Good question and one Mr. Duke would love to know the answer to as well.

Obviously, Duke's problems in 2006 are suggestive of defensive issues and the Pirates do own the worst defensive efficiency ratio in MLB (DER is the ability to convert a ball in play into an out). So that correlates.

Duke is also throwing 7% fewer first pitch strikes and 3% fewer strikes overall, so getting behind in the count early isn't helping either. Duke is also striking out about one less batter per 9 inning game as well.

I think it was John Wehner who mentioned Duke seemed to be 'nibbling' more this year but I think he visualizes that because home plate umpires have reduced the size of the strikezone with rookie catcher Ronny Paulino behind the plate this year, more than Duke 'nibbling'.

The bottom chart shows Duke's increased walk rate per 9 innings - about 1 more per 9 innings of work , and the second chart shows nearly one additional batter reaching base per inning in 2006 over 2005. Since his walk rate isn't allowing that much, obviously balls in play are falling for hits a lot more in 2006 than 2005.

Lastly, the third chart tells the entire story.. Duke is below league average in leaving men on base in 2006.

So while Duke has a horrific ERA and has allowed a lot of first inning runs to NLCD teams, he really isn't pitching that poor. I assume the extra hits are falling partly from poor advance scouting, partly from not pitching to his defense, and partly from just plain old fashion bad luck, like seeing eye ground balls.

There had been a lot of talk earlier in the year about Colborn tinkering with Zach's delivery in spring training but I have reviewed a lot of film on Zach and the only change I see is that he isn't throwing across his body as much as he used to. They call that softening a pitcher up and that adjustment is typically made so a pitcher won't hurt himself.

The softening seems to have taken about 1 mph off Duke's heater but has given him better sink on the ball. The results are obvious by looking at the above chart showing an increase in groundballs hit and fewer line drives over last year.

In 2005, Duke was routinely throwing heaters the first time through the order and he was topping out at about 93 mph. This year he has topped out at 92 but he is throwing a lot more junk the first time through the order. Maybe he doesn't trust his heater as much? Or, maybe Colborn just wants him to learn to pitch with all his pitches in 2006?

But none of that explains his high ERA this year. Only two things do.. balls having more seeing eyes than last year, and, seemingly, Tracy and Colborn not knowing the NLCD hitters as well as Mac and Spin did.

Here is a 12 minute video showing some of Duke's 2005 games vs. his game today for you to evaluate for yourself (give it a minute to load as it is pretty large). I ran the video at fast speed so you could focus on pitch speed and location while trying to keep the size of the video smaller. Listen to Wehner's 2005 comments about Zach then watch pitch speed and location as I show you the first inning work of Duke in 2 other starts in 2005 vs his start last night.

You can also click this link to play it if you prefer: Looking at Duke.

My take?

There is no question our defense has been horrific this year and all of our pitchers are suffering from it. Dave Littlefield has a lot of groundball pitchers in his starting rotation and with the youthful battery we have, the youthful defense we are playing, and no scouting reports covering 2003 - 2005 in Littlefield's locker, we are getting beat up from every direction possible.

I'm also guessing Colborn might be forcing Duke to learn how to pitch earlier in the game without throwing fastball after fastball so that he learns to trust his other pitches more than he did in 2005. The end result is that good off-speed hitting teams like the Cubs and Astros have climbed all over him early.

Call it getting creamed in the name of development, if you will. One thing for sure, Duke isn't pitching anywhere near as bad as his ERA and stats suggest he is and the clear indicator of that is his significantly reduced line drive rate. He is getting the type of hits he wants, he just has to learn "how to pitch" now to get the ball to go in the direction he wants.