May 31, 2004
New Lowe
Derek Lowe was knocked around again today. The Orioles scored seven runs in 5+ innings (the first five Orioles reached in the 5th against Lowe). As far as I can tell, the main thing Derek is doing differently is walking more batters. Take a look at this chart:
| Derek Lowe | BB/9 | ERA |
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| 2002 | 2.0 | 2.58 |
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| 2003 | 3.2 | 4.47 |
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| 2004 | 4.4 | 6.84 |
|---|
When Lowe doesn't have his control, he walks batters. When he walks batters, he has to get pitches into the strike zone, and he has to do that by throwing the ball higher in the zone. And Derek's high pitches are hittable. Is there are real difference in Lowe, or have batters realized they take the low pitch and have it called a ball?
Posted by David Pinto at
03:33 PM
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He was having blister problems today, which certainly contributed to some of that wildness. But overall, he hasn't been locating his pitches well at all, this year or last. They blamed last year on his cancer scare in spring training, but he's even worse this year.
There's also the question of whether or not the mediocre defense of the Sox has hurt him. When Nomar gets back, Pokey Reese can move over to 2B and there will be a lot of range up the middle.
It's particularly bad for Lowe to be this bad in his walk year. I wonder if the Sox will be able to resign him on the cheap, or if they'll just take a pass. He wasn't great last year either.
Some of Lowe's problems may be attributable to the defense, but when the balls are up in the zone they get hit up. Having Nomar back may not necessarily give Lowe very much help unless he can start inducing infield ground balls with a working sinker...
