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St. Louis Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez had a particularly fascist outing last night against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The 23-year-old righthander notched 11 strikeouts over seven innings of work. The outing pushed Martinez's 2015 strikeout rate to 26.9%. (I prefer to use K% instead of K/9, which I explained in an old post using Adam Wainwright as an example.) That ranks 12th in MLB among starting pitchers entering play on Saturday behind these guys:
- Chris Archer (TB), 32.7%
- Danny Salazar (CLE), 31.0%
- Corey Kluber (CLE), 30.6%
- Clayton Kershaw (LAD), 30.5%
- Chris Sale (CHW), 30.0%
- Francisco Liriano (PIT), 30.0%
- Max Scherzer (WSH), 29.3%
- James Shields (SD), 29.3%
- Carlos Carrasco (CLE), 28.2%
- Gerrit Cole (PIT), 28.0%
- Matt Harvey (NYM), 27.6%
VEB Community member VanHicklestein (@VanHicklestein on Twitter) put together a gif that shows us the third strike of each of Martinez's 11 Ks against the Dodgers:
What a gorgeous collection of moving pixels.
Here's an inventory of those third and final strikes:
- Joc Pederson, Slider Looking (86 mph)
- Pederson, 2-Seam Fastball Caught Foul Tip (96 mph)
- Yasmani Grandal, Curveball Looking (85 mph)
- Andre Ethier, Slider Swinging (88 mph)
- Scott Schebler, Slider Swinging (86 mph)
- Enrique Hernandez, 4-Seam Fastball Swinging (94 mph)
- Brett Anderson, 4-Seam Fastball Swinging (94 mph)
- Grandal, Slider Looking (85 mph)
- Ethier, Slider Swinging (86 mph)
- Alberto Callaspo, Curveball Looking (86 mph)
- Anderson, Slider Looking (86 mph)
According to the MLB.com Gameday algorithm, Martinez was throwing a curveball. Brooks Baseball classifies Martinez's breaking ball last night a slider. I found this interesting in the wake of the Twitter discussion between me, Craig, Derrick Goold, and others earlier in the week. Maybe we should just call it a breaking ball? Or perhaps think up a new name that properly describes its NSFW qualities but that is PG?