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August 10, 2010

Four Things You Did Not Know About Daisuke Matsuzaka

1. He has thrown a higher percentage of his pitches for strikes than Jon Lester.
             PIT    STR      %
Wakefield   1764   1162   65.873
Matsuzaka   1668   1057   63.369
Lester      2452   1533   62.520
Buchholz    1916   1194   62.317
Beckett     1226    761   62.071
Lackey      2506   1552   61.931
2. He gets ahead of batters 0-2 more often than any other starter.
             PA   0-2      %
Matsuzaka   416   108   25.961
Wakefield   499   125   25.050
Buchholz    490   118   24.081
Lester      629   149   23.688
Beckett     321    64   19.937
Lackey      652   128   19.631
3. He is second on the team in three-pitch strikeouts. He has 17, which is five fewer than Lester, but Lester has thrown 55.1 more innings.

4. His high pitch count this season is 112, the lowest among all starters not named Doubront or Atchison.
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10 comments:

  1. AaronAugust 10, 2010 at 10:23 AM

    Great post JOS.

    ReplyDelete
  2. laura kAugust 10, 2010 at 10:32 AM

    Yes, excellent post. As you say in the Ground Rules: we like facts.

    ReplyDelete
  3. FenFanAugust 10, 2010 at 10:56 AM

    Wow, awesome work! I second what Aaron and L-girl have already stated.

    ReplyDelete
  4. timAugust 10, 2010 at 11:42 AM

    Interesting. Swell post indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  5. allanAugust 10, 2010 at 11:49 AM

    Shucks!

    I sent the link to Pete Abraham, since he often uses stuff like this in his Game Posts.

    He wondered "how many of those 0-2 counts ended up with a runner getting on base and what that percentage compares to other guys?"

    Well, of the 108 0-2 counts, B-Ref says Dice threw a strike on 71 of them. But that must include foul balls, because he has only 19 K on 0-2 counts.

    Batters are 5 for 50 against Dice on 0-2 counts. And 8 for 84 (with 3 BB) after the count is 0-2 (meaning it also includes 1-2 and 2-2).

    As I told Pete, I would never have dreamed his strike % was so high. It certainly goes against what my eyes tell me.

    Another reason why it's good that someone keeps track of these things, so we are not left having to trust someone who says "Dice must throw fewer strikes than anyone in baseball."

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rick (f/k/a westcoastsox)August 10, 2010 at 12:05 PM

    Yeah, I liked this too. Wonder if he's leading the stat "Most 0-2 counts that turn into a 3-2 count"?

    ReplyDelete
  7. mattymattyAugust 10, 2010 at 12:30 PM

    I saw the headline of the post and said to myself, "Self, I bet I know at least three of these." Nope, not a one. Good job, Red Sock.

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  8. allanAugust 10, 2010 at 1:18 PM

    There were, of course, many other Dicetoids I found that would not have surprised you (lowest 1st pitch strike %, for example) ...

    ReplyDelete
  9. allanAugust 10, 2010 at 1:25 PM

    How about this?

    Papelbon has had more games this season in which he recorded more than 3 outs (7) than games with fewer than 3 outs (6).

    ReplyDelete
  10. johngoldfineAugust 10, 2010 at 8:04 PM

    Oh well, if you're going to win arguments by cheating with facts and numbers....

    Nice eye-opener, brain-expander post

    ReplyDelete