Braves Start Anew on the Left Coast
Outside of Bryce Elder’s masterful performance in his debut, the Washington series is one the Braves would soon rather forget.
They’ll get that chance today as they start a 7-game Cali trip in San Diego for four games & then three games in Los Angeles against the Dodgers.
The first guy they’ll face will be San Diego’s Joe Musgrove. That name may ring a bell seeing as he threw the first no-hitter in Padres franchise history last April against the Texas Rangers.
He had a pretty good 2021 for the SoCal Friars. Ending the year with an 11-9 record in 31 starts, two complete game shutouts, 203 strikeouts, 1.08 WHIP, & a .213 average against.
His advanced metrics concur:
Arsenal & Tendencies
Musgrove boasts a legitimate 5-pitch arsenal; led by his slider (27% usage), changeup (21.6%), cutter (21.6%), 4-seam fastball (18.9%), & curveball (10.8%).
As you can see from his usage rates, he uses all five pitches; neglecting none. He’s a part of a very small group of starting pitchers that throw five pitches at least 10% of the time.
One stat that stands out to me is that he didn’t throw one single hanging slider last year. In fact, he didn’t throw a single slider in the top of the zone:
You can also see that he predominantly threw his slide to draw swings & misses. His only hot zone is low & outside the zone for righties. The only other zone that’s even warm is the very far corner low & away to righties.
His changeup is almost the exact opposite. He predominantly throws it away outside the zone to lefties, with an average horizontal break of 9.2 inches. He does however, like to drop it in the bottom of the zone to start at-bats to get ahead 0-1.
Braves Bats
Braves hitters, more than any game so far this season, will have to be patient & take advantage of the fastball when he throws it. If they go in with the conventional “don’t swing at a first pitch off-speed” then they’ll start behind in the count damn near every at-bat.
Musgrove surrenders a good amount of home runs, so last season’s MLB-leading runs-from-HR’s team will need to bring that back to get the series win in San Diego this weekend.
The series is four games long.