A.J. Burnett's Pitch Location vs. the Baltimore Orioles

Earlier in the week, we broke down A.J. Burnett's success, or lack thereof, into three zones.  We saw that he has been very bad over the middle and upper parts of the zone, and close to the best in the league when keeping the ball down.

Well last night Burnett had another awful game yielding 9 runs to the Baltimore Orioles over five innings.  Was he keeping the ball out of the middle and upper portions of the zone?

No, he certainly did not.  Of the 116 pitches that A.J. Burnett threw last night, just 15 were located in the lower part of the zone.  Not surprisingly, three of his five strikeouts came on pitches down in the zone, and he gave up just one hit in seven plate appearances decided on a low pitch.

(Click image to enlarge)

If A.J. is going to regain anything of his old form, he should probably start by doing what my parents always yelled at me to do: keep it down.