L.A. Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw: Early Season Pitch Breakdown

Clayton Kershaw's slider is arguably his best pitch.  Fangraphs has it at 22.3 runs above average over the course of his career.  He's off to a good start with the pitch this season, as batters have managed one hit on 27 swings.  He's also struck out nine batters on sliders and they've put up a 48.1% contact rate overall against them.

Kershaw's fastball has given him a little trouble this season.  In his last start in Colorado, Kershaw allowed two home runs on fastballs, and both were pitches up in the zone. 

Clayton Kershaw's Fastball (Click to enlarge)

	P	VEL	BrkX	BrkZ	Contact%
2008-10	1323	93.8	-2.3	11.6	83.3%
2011	119	93.3	-0.2	10.2	84.6%

It looks like Kershaw's fastball is coming in a little flatter than in previous seasons. The HRs to Chris Ianetta and Troy Tulowitzki were located in the upper middle portion of the zone and had BrkX readings of under -1.0. Batters have put up an expected wOBA of .323 so far against Kershaw's fastball, compared to his previous three season expected wOBA of .291. But with only two starts worth of fastballs to compare, it's obviously much too early to draw any significant conclusions from the data.

Nelson Cruz Looks Lower

Nelson Cruz tied a major league record by hitting homers in each of the first four Texas Rangers game of the season.  The Texas outfielder showed impressive power during the three previous seasons, slugging .565 during the period.  Nelson concentrated his power in the upper half of the strike zone:

Nelson Cruz slugging zones, 2008-2010.Not surprisingly, pitchers tried to work him down and away:

Nelson Cruz, pitch frequency, 2008-2010.Pitcher probably don't get the ball down as much as they'd like against Nelson, but you can see the intent in the heat map.

In 2011, they tried the same thing:

Nelson Cruz, pitch frequency, 2011.So far, they are doing a very good job of working Nelson down.  What they didn't count on was Cruz making an adjustment:

Nelson Cruz slugging zones, 2011.Instead of waiting to crush a high pitch, Nelson went down and got the low pitches.  The pitchers were following their scouting report and got burned.  It may be that Nelson just got lucky.  It's early in the season and anything can happen in a few at bats.  It would make sense, however, for Cruz to learn to hit where the pitchers are working, so it may be time for the scouting report to change.

Willie Bloomquist's Wrigley Field Dinger

Arizona Diamondback Willie Bloomquist rocketed a leadoff home run off of Chicago Cubs starter Randy Wells yesterday afternoon.  It was only the 14th HR in Bloomquist's major league career; in fact, he has more triples in his career (15) than home runs.

Taking a look at Bloomquist's slugging percentage heat map, we see that while he doesn't generate a lot of power, he does hit inside pitches well.

Willie Bloomquist 2008-10 (Click to enlarge)

Randy Wells threw Bloomquist a 2-1 cutter that came up and in, usually a very tough location for a batter to turn on.  However, Bloomquist deposited it into the left field bleacher seats at Wrigley.

Willie Bloomquist vs. Randy Wells (Top 1st, 4/4/11) (Click to enlarge)

The home run traveled 379 feet.  In 2010, Bloomquist, then a Kansas City Royal, hit a game winning home run off a 92 MPH fastball from Detroit Tigers' Alfredo Figaro, which traveled 385 feet and landed in an almost identical location in the left field seats, albeit in Comerica Park.  Where was that pitch located?

Willie Bloomquist vs. Alfredo Figaro (Top 12th, 8/25/2010) (Click to enlarge)

Bloomquist isn't a home run threat by any means.  But pitchers should probably avoid that upper inside portion of the zone to keep it that way.