Smoltz Falters Again. Do We Have A Problem Here?
It has begun.
People all across Boston are standing on the ledges of their office buildings, they are lining up at the base of the Tobin Bridge, they are sticking the key in the ignitions of their SUVs parked in sealed garages, fully prepared to embrace the warm comfort of eternity.
John Smoltz has yet another rough outing, and that ERA is again creeping towards Dice-K territory. Should we cut bait on the 42-year-old, or allow him to work his way out of this funk?
Some things to consider:
Smoltz has an FIP of 3.55. His ERA minus FIP (a rough measure of bad pitching luck) is 2.76. If he had pitched the qualifying amount of innings, this would lead the American League (the current qualified league lead is Carl Pavano with 1.54).
Smoltz has yielded a BABIP of .373. Again, this would league the American League if Smoltz had qualified.
The one tidbit that would have me slightly worried about last night is a noticeable decrease in velocity. If we compare Smoltz’s outing last night to his previous outing (in which he allowed only 1 run and struck out 7 in 5 innings) we can see an approximate drop in velocity of 2 MPH in both his fastball and slider.
| 7/11/2009 | Average Speed | Max Speed |
| Fastball | 91.76 | 93.8 |
| Slider | 85.17 | 87.7 |
| 7/20/2009 | Average Speed | Max Speed |
| Fastball | 90.06 | 91.5 |
| Slider | 83.04 | 84.9 |
Watch the Captain, kids. This is how it's done. This is how you give up outs.
Hopefully, this is mainly due to the abnormally long rest in between starts (9 days due to the All-Star Break), and not a sign of a deeper problem.
I think we need to be patient here, and give the guy a few more yards of slack. Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Brad Penny, and Daisuke Matsuzaka all sputtered out of the gate this year. In three of those cases, they pitched themselves out of the funk and are now operating as expected. In the other case, there was a problem that caused the organization to pull the emergency brake and take action. We need more time to evaluate this guy, to determine which of the two buckets he falls into.
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