Halladay and Left-Handed Batter Home Runs

Roy Halladay (PHI) allowed his second home run of the season on Sunday, a shot by Dan Uggla (ATL) that cost him the game.  Halladay is a great pitcher, but he does allow a decent number of home runs. Having given up just two one quarter of the way through the season is unusual for him.  The other unusual aspect of this season is that both home runs came off the bats of right-handed batters.

During the three previous seasons, Halladay saw a left-handed batter about 55% of the time, and they hit 38 of the 64 home runs against him, or 59%.  Roy worked lefties in and out, avoiding the middle of the plate as much as possible:

Roy Halladay, pitch frequency against LHB, 2008-2010.These batters were able to take the high and low inside pitches deep:

Roy Halladay, pitch frequency of home runs by LHB, 2008-2010.So far in 2011, Roy reduced his use of the inside part of the plate against left-handers:

Roy Halladay, pitch frequency against LHB, 2011.Roy throws mostly on the outer half of the plate against left-handed batters now, and he's been rewarded with no home runs allowed from that side of the plate.  Lefties slugged .372 against him from 2008-2010, but that's down to .277 this season.

Roy Halladay's Change Up

Roy Halladay (PHI) struck out 14 Padres on Sunday, April 24, 2011, tying a career high.  He tied San Diego in knots due to his change up.  The Padres had no problem recognizing his fastball.  They swung when the pitch was in the strike zone:

Roy Halladay, swings at fastball, April 24, 2011.San Diego batters also did a good job of deciding when to take the pitch:

Roy Halladay, taken fastballs, April 24, 2011.Roy's change up came in ten miles an hour slower than his fastball.  It showed the same horizontal movement, but dipped more.  The Padres got that pitch backwards:

Roy Halladay, swings at change up, April 24, 2011.Note the huges concentration of swings below the strike zone.  Now look where the opposition was taking the pitch:

Roy Halladay, taken change ups, April 24, 2011.I suspect that once a batter takes one of those change ups in the heart of the strike zone, he's more likely to swing at one down further.  Halladay is a master at messing up a batter's timing, changing speeds and locations.  This allows him to work efficiently, going deep in games.  All those skills were on display Sunday.

The Best in 3-Ball Counts

Top 20 Pitchers by BB% in 3-Ball Counts (min. 75 PA)

Of course, simply limiting your walks with 3 balls is not an indication of success. You obviously want to avoid awarding free bases to batters, but you also don't want to do so at the expense of grooving pitches either. You can see that both Lee and Halladay were able to limit their opponents to around a .200 batting average (also around .300 slugging percentage for both) with three ball counts in 2010. Of course, they were just as successful when pitching with two strikes (Lee .220 SLG%, Halladay .243 SLG%, both w/ .161 BA). Conclusion: working the count on these Philly aces doesn't seem to do much good.