Jonny Venters' Dominant Slider

Jonny Venters has thrown 191 sliders this season, and opposing hitters have swung at 103 of those sliders.  Yet, of those 103 swings, they have hit nothing but air 70.9% of the time.  That leads all major league pitchers throwing sliders.  Sergei Santos of the Chicago White Sox comes in second with 64.9%, and there are only five other pitchers who have produced a Miss% rate on sliders greater than 50% this season.

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You can see that he keeps the slider away from lefties, missing the strike zone the majority of the time, while keeping it on the bottom of the zone to righties.  Venters has gotten opposing hitters to swing at his sliders located out of the zone 51.5% of the time.  In fact, Lefties have chased 61% of sliders he's thrown out of the zone, which ranks 3rd best in the league behind Jaime Garcia and Joel Hanrahan.

Last season, Venters was getting hitters to swing and miss at 63.7% of his sliders and chase 41.5%.  While both are still excellent overall (his Miss% also led the league in 2010), his current slider has gone above and beyond.  Lefties are hitting just .115 against, while righties have yet to get a hit in 35 plate appearances decided on a slider.  In fact, in the 61 PA in which a Jonny Venters slider was the deciding pitch, 51 have been strike outs (47 swinging, 4 looking).  The fact that he can throw his slider effectively to both righties and lefties is a major reason he hasn't allowed an earned run since June 29th.

Put-Away Pitchers

Top 15 Pitchers with Two Strikes by K%

Chicago White Sox closer Sergio Santos has been deadly in two strike counts. With a 65.0% K-rate, he's the best put away pitcher so far in 2011. In 103 plate appearances with two strikes, Santos has yielded only 8 hits and 10 walks while striking out 67 batters.

While Kameron Loe's 41.5% K-rate in two strike counts ranks only 97th among qualified pitchers, his .102 weighted on base average is tops in all of baseball. He's given up just 8 base hits with two strikes, none for extra bases. One reason for the lack of opposing power has been his ability to keep the ball out of the air. With two strikes, Loe has given up all of 6 fly balls out of 57 balls put in play, compared to 41 grounders.

Leaning In

Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies and Carlos Quentin of the Chicago White Sox lead the majors in hit by pitches since the start of the 2008 season.  Utley leads with 77 and Quentin is close with 75, but there is a big fall off to Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers with 50.  Utley and Quentin do a great job of leaning in so they are closer to the strike zone.

Chase Utley hit by pitch (left) vs. all MLB LHB (right), 2008-2011.Utley comes very close to getting hit in the strike zone, which would be strikes.  He also manages to take a pitch on the foot more often than most left-handed batters.

Carlos Quentin hit by pitch (left) vs. all MLB RHB (right), 2008-2011.Carlos does not lean in as much as Utley, with the highest concentration of hit by pitches very much inside. The difference between Quentin and most right-handed batters, is he lacks the big fall off as the pitches get closer to the plate.  Maybe he's just better at getting out of the way of the border-line strikes than Utley, as he seldom gets hit low.

This is not a trival stat.  Hit by pitches add over 20 points to Utley's and Quentin's OBP in this time frame.  Avoiding outs is a hugh part of offense, and these two players found a painful way to help out their teams.