What Went Right for Rick Porcello Today?

After Rick Porcello's previous start at San Diego, I used Brooks Baseball's Pitch f/x data to touch upon what he did wrong.  In particular, he threw too many balls up in the zone, especially to left-handed batters who went 6 for 14 against him.  The result was five runs allowed on 10 total hits in a 6-0 loss to the Padres.

Today, Porcello was much better allowing just one run on five hits in seven innings against a powerful Angels line-up which has beaten him up badly in the past.  As is the case in most of his good starts, the 25-year-old right hander kept the ball on the ground getting 12 outs of ground balls to go with four strikeouts.

Porcello generally struggles versus left-handed batters, but today he held them to just 2 hits in 13 at bats. Figure 1 below shows that he did a good job keeping the ball either down or just off the outside edge. Contrast that to his previous start (Figure 2) where he located to many bitches in the middle of the zone.  

Figure 1 

Data source: BrooksBaseball.net

Figure 2

Data source: BrooksBaseball.net

In his San Diego start, Porcello relied more on his slider than his generally more effective curveball.  Today, he went back to his curve using it 17 times as opposed to 9 sliders.  He used 11 curves and no sliders versus left handers, an approach with which he he had some success last year (at least more than in his previous years versus lefties).

Finally, Porcello had a little better stamina this afternoon lasting 103 pitches and throwing three 91 MPH fastballs in his last inning of work (See Figure 3 below).  He typically runs out of gas between pitches 60-70, but was still throwing consistently at 92 MPH in that range and beyond today.

Figure 3

Data source: BrooksBaseball.net

So, Porcello had a positive outing versus a strong-hitting team team day and hopes to carry the momentum into his next start at Minnesota next Friday.