It's the strangest thing. Some of us have suspected, over the years, that Josh Towers would be much better off if he left the AL East behind and took his act to the National League.
It makes sense, except for one small problem. Josh Towers can't beat National League teams. Since coming to the Blue Jays in 2003, he's made 13 starts against NL teams. He's won only one of them - and that was against a team (the Montreal Expos) that no longer exists.
Towers' first two wins as a major league starter came against the Expos and Mets back in May 2001, when he was a rookie with the Orioles. In the six years since then, he has one win against an NL team. Later in that 2001 season, he lost to the Braves. He didn't make another start against an NL team until 2004, by which time he was a Blue Jay. He made three consecutive starts against NL teams in June - the Dodgers cuffed him around in the first one, and he pitched very well (7 IP, 1 R both times) in the other two - a no-decision against San Diego and a win against Montreal.
He hasn't beaten an NL team since. In his otherwise outstanding 2005 season, Towers made 5 starts against the NL. He went 0-4, 3.86. As the ERA suggests, he didn't pitch that badly - in his four losses, the Jays scored a total of four runs and were shut out twice.
Towers stunk against the whole world in 2006, and his fortunes did not change against the NL. He lost two of his three starts, to Colorado and the Mets; he escaped with a no decision against the Braves (he left a 4-4 tie, the Jays won 6-5). And this season, since replacing Ohka, he's started against the Giants and Nationals and taken two more losses. He's 1-5 in his 6 starts this season. Although, when you consider that in those six games the Jays have scored 3, 2, 2, 3, 3, and 2 runs (15 altogther, 2.5 per game), perhaps the most surprising thing is that he was actually able to win one of them.
Anyway, since joining the Jays, Towers is 33-28 against the AL and 1-9 against the NL. Go figure.
I was in the house for two of the three Washington games - Doc on Friday night and Towers yesterday - alas, my other job (I have many) forced me to miss Marcum's outstanding work on Saturday.
For no particular reason, I thought it would be fun to chart each pitch thrown by the two starters, enter all kinds of stuff into a speadsheet and see what tidbits could be generated. And I got lucky. I got two starting performances that were extremely similar in a great many ways.
Hang on, I hear you say. Similar? One guy won and one guy lost. One guy was outstanding and one guy was... adequate, if you want to be generous about it.
I know. But consider these two games.
Halladay and Towers both faced 27 batters. They retired 19 of them, and recorded two more outs by double plays. (Halladay got an additional out thanks to a caught stealing.)
They allowed eight baserunners - one walk (Langerhans in both games), and seven hits. One of the hits was a home run.
Towers needed just 81 pitches to go through those 27 hitters, while Halladay threw 110 before leaving the game.
Towers retired the side in order in four of his seven innings, Halladay just twice. This has a lot to do with why Towers allowed four runs, and Halladay just two. The Nationals bunched their eight baserunners against Towers into just three innnings - Halladay scattered his eight baserunners over six innings (Doc pitched into the eighth, of course - it's one of just two innings where he allowed more than one man to reach base. The other was the fifth, where he gave up a leadoff single that was instantly erased by a double play, and then another single.)
But what I was really interested in was what each man was throwing. How were their pitches distributed? What did they do to start an at bat? What did they do when they fell behind? What did they do with two strikes on a hitter? I will provide Data Tables below so that you may, if you wish, find your own Items of Interest.
And a quick correction to something I wrote the other night. I was complaining about pitchers throwing the same breaking ball to a hitter on consecutive pitches. I noted how Bacsik threw three straight change-ups to Wells, and got burned for a double on the last one. I said Halladay only tried something similar once, and Schneider rapped a single on the second curveball. In fact, Doc did the same thing with Church in the second inning - (he took the first one for a strike, and fouled off the second one.)
Those two sequences were the only times that Halladay threw breaking balls on consecutive pitches. Towers, who throws a lot more breaking balls, does it much more often. In the fourth, he threw consecutive sliders to Kearns (ball, swinging strike); he did the same thing to Batista starting off the fifth (taken strike, flyout). He threw back-to-back sliders later in the inning to Belliard (swinging strike, base hit up the middle). On several other occasions he combined the slider with one of his other breaking pitches.
Anyway - Halladay threw 110 pitches on Friday night - 84 fastballs, 22 curves, and 4 change-ups. Towers threw 81 pitches on Sunday afternoon - 46 fastballs, 25 sliders, 7 change-ups, and 3 curveballs. Halladay threw the fastball on 76% of his pitches, Towers on 57% of his.
I'm using the speed readings from the scoreboard at the Dome, and according to it, the fastball breakdown was as follows:
Halladay: 94 mph (5), 93 mph (18), 92 mph (29), 91 mph (19), 90 mph (8), 89 mph (4), and 86 mph (1). That last one was actually a pitchout. Doc lost a little velocity as the night went on - most of his 94 fastballs came very early, and by around the sixth inning, he had settled into a nice groove in the 91-92 range. He also began mixing in more curveballs the second and third time through the order.
Towers: 91 mph (4); 90 mph (3), 89 mph (4), 88 mph (17), 87 mph (6), 86 mph (7), 85 mph (4), 83 mph (1). That last one may have been a change-up that he threw too well. At the beginning of the game, his fastball was 85-86, but he picked up velocity as the day wore on - by the fourth inning he was in the high 80s, and in the fifth inning, he started to hit 90 and 91.
Doc had 13 swinging strikes on the night - 10 off the fastball, 3 off the curve. Towers had 8 - 5 off the slider, 2 off the fastball, and 1 off a curve.
Halladay only threw 4 change-ups, but one was put in play - a single by Guzman. 4 of his curves were put in play - two hits (Schneider's single and Kearns' double), a flyout and a groundout. The fastball got him 10 groundouts (including the two DPs) and one flyout - he gave up 4 hits off his fastball (the Langerhans homer, and singles by Schneider, Lopez, and Kearns.)
Towers only throws his curve and change-up to LH batters. Fick put two change-ups in play (single and lineout); none of the curves were put in play. He gave up two hits (Young's double, Belliard's single) and got four outs on balls in play off his slider. There were 14 balls in play off his fastball - four of them were hits (Zimmerman's homer, Kearns' double, singles by Batista and Kearns.) He got seven hitters out on the ground (one a DP) and three in the air (1 a DP).
How do they begin an at bat? Each threw 27 first pitches. Halladay went with the fastball 22 times - he started 4 hitters with curves, and 1 with a change-up. Towers went with 12 fastballs, 10 sliders, 3 curves, and 2 change-ups.
What do they do when they need to throw a strike? These two pitchers don't get behind the hitter very often, of course. Halladay threw 4 pitches on a 3-2 count, and 3 pitches on a 2-0 count - and all seven times, he came in with a fastball. All but one of them were strikes (the one that walked Langerhans, when Bucknor had lost track of the count.)
Towers had just one 3-2 pitch - he threw a slider to Langerhans and walked him. He was behind 2-0 twice, both times to Fick. He threw a fastball the first time, a change-up the second time - on both occasions, Fick lined out to the right side of the infield.
When they get ahead 0-2, do they mess around with waste pitches or try to end the at bat? This was strange. Halladay had six 0-2 pitches, and threw a fastball every time. But he didn't end any of the at bats. One was a pitch-out, four of them missed for a ball, and one was fouled off. Towers also had six 0-2 pitches, and five times the next pitch ended the at bat. Towers threw 4 fastballs and 2 sliders in this situation. He missed the strike zone once, with a fastball to Batista. Langerhans struck out looking at a fastball and Kearns popped out on a slider. The other three 0-2 counts were all to Young, who grounded out on a fastball, struck out swinging at a fastball, and doubled to left on a slider.
I'm probably certifiably insane, but I can look over this stuff for hours.
I am, I have decided, the King of the Small Sample Size. Next week, in fact, I plan to write something about the Goodness of Small Sample Sizes, in the course of justifying my on-going interest, which absolutely no one else seems to share or care about, in Batter-Pitcher matchups.
Anyway, here are the Data Tables outlining all the pitches the two men threw, and what became of them:
Roy Halladay vs Washington, Friday 15 June (Zaun catching)
No. Batter Inning Count Outs Runners Velocity Pitch Result
1 Guzman 1 0-0 0 91 Fastball s
2 Guzman 1 0-1 0 91 Fastball t
3 Guzman 1 0-2 0 94 Fastball b
4 Guzman 1 1-2 0 79 Curve s K swinging
5 Lopez 1 0-0 1 93 Fastball b
6 Lopez 1 1-0 1 93 Fastball b
7 Lopez 1 2-0 1 92 Fastball t
8 Lopez 1 2-1 1 93 Fastball f
9 Lopez 1 2-2 1 94 Fastball h G 43
10 Zimmerman 1 0-0 2 94 Fastball t
11 Zimmerman 1 0-1 2 92 Fastball b
12 Zimmerman 1 1-1 2 94 Fastball s
13 Zimmerman 1 1-2 2 81 Curve s K swinging
14 Young 2 0-0 0 91 Fastball b
15 Young 2 1-0 0 91 Fastball f
16 Young 2 1-1 0 78 Curve t
17 Young 2 1-2 0 91 Fastball f
18 Young 2 1-2 0 90 Fastball f
19 Young 2 1-2 0 79 Curve h G 43
20 Kearns 2 0-0 1 93 Fastball t
21 Kearns 2 0-1 1 79 Curve b
22 Kearns 2 1-1 1 93 Fastball f
23 Kearns 2 1-2 1 92 Fastball b
24 Kearns 2 2-2 1 92 Fastball b
25 Kearns 2 3-2 1 92 Fastball h G 63
26 Church 2 0-0 2 93 Fastball b
27 Church 2 1-0 2 93 Fastball b
28 Church 2 2-0 2 91 Fastball f
29 Church 2 2-1 2 78 Curve t
30 Church 2 2-2 2 78 Curve f
31 Church 2 2-2 2 92 Fastball h F 8
32 Schneider 3 0-0 0 76 Curve b
33 Schneider 3 1-0 0 92 Fastball s
34 Schneider 3 1-1 0 92 Fastball h G 63
35 Logan 3 0-0 1 93 Fastball g
36 Logan 3 0-1 1 91 Fastball b
37 Logan 3 1-1 1 92 Fastball s
38 Logan 3 1-2 1 81 Curve s K swinging
39 Langerhans 3 0-0 2 93 Fastball t
40 Langerhans 3 0-1 2 86 Change b
41 Langerhans 3 1-1 2 92 Fastball s
42 Langerhans 3 1-2 2 79 Curve b
43 Langerhans 3 2-2 2 93 Fastball f
44 Langerhans 3 2-2 2 80 Curve b
45 Langerhans 3 3-2 2 92 Fastball f
46 Langerhans 3 3-2 2 94 Fastball b WALK
47 Guzman 3 0-0 2 1 87 Change t
48 Guzman 3 0-1 2 1 89 Fastball s
49 Guzman 3 0-2 2 1 86 Fastball p
50 Guzman 3 1-2 2 1 90 Fastball h G 43
51 Lopez 4 0-0 0 77 Curve b
52 Lopez 4 1-0 0 92 Fastball t
53 Lopez 4 1-1 0 93 Fastball h SINGLE (infield)
54 Zimmerman 4 0-0 0 1 92 Fastball r
55 Zimmerman 4 0-1 0 1 78 Curve t
56 Zimmerman 4 0-2 0 1 93 Fastball f
57 Zimmerman 4 0-2 0 1 91 Fastball b CAUGHT STEALING
58 Zimmerman 4 1-2 1 93 Fastball h G 13
59 Young 4 0-0 2 78 Curve h F 7
60 Kearns 5 0-0 0 91 Fastball h SINGLE (soft liner)
61 Church 5 0-0 0 1 91 Fastball b
62 Church 5 1-0 0 1 90 Fastball h GDP 463
63 Schneider 5 0-0 2 92 Fastball b
64 Schneider 5 1-0 2 91 Fastball f
65 Schneider 5 1-1 2 84 Change f
66 Schneider 5 1-2 2 93 Fastball b
67 Schneider 5 2-2 2 78 Curve f
68 Schneider 5 2-2 2 78 Curve h SINGLE(liner to RF)
69 Logan 5 0-0 2 1 92 Fastball b
70 Logan 5 1-0 2 1 93 Fastball b
71 Logan 5 2-0 2 1 93 Fastball s
72 Logan 5 2-1 2 1 92 Fastball b
73 Logan 5 3-1 2 1 92 Fastball f
74 Logan 5 3-2 2 1 92 Fastball s K swinging
75 Langerhans 6 0-0 0 91 Fastball t
76 Langerhans 6 0-1 0 90 Fastball t
77 Langerhans 6 0-2 0 89 Fastball b
78 Langerhans 6 1-2 0 79 Curve f
79 Langerhans 6 1-2 0 92 Fastball f
80 Langerhans 6 1-2 0 78 Curve t K looking
81 Guzman 6 0-0 1 90 Fastball t
82 Guzman 6 0-1 1 84 Change h SINGLE ((grounder CF)
83 Lopez 6 0-0 1 1 92 Fastball t
84 Lopez 6 0-1 1 1 91 Fastball b
85 Lopez 6 1-1 1 1 89 Fastball h GDP 643
86 Zimmerman 7 0-0 0 77 Curve t
87 Zimmerman 7 0-1 0 92 Fastball h G 53
88 Young 7 0-0 1 93 Fastball t
89 Young 7 0-1 1 92 Fastball h G 43
90 Kearns 7 0-0 2 92 Fastball t
91 Kearns 7 0-1 2 79 Curve h DOUBLE (liner to LF)
92 Church 7 0-0 2 2 92 Fastball t
93 Church 7 0-1 2 2 89 Fastball b
94 Church 7 1-1 2 2 92 Fastball h G 43
95 Schneider 8 0-0 0 91 Fastball b
96 Schneider 8 1-0 0 92 Fastball t
97 Schneider 8 1-1 0 91 Fastball b
98 Schneider 8 2-1 0 91 Fastball f
99 Schneider 8 2-2 0 90 Fastball h SINGLE (infield)
100 Logan 8 0-0 0 1 91 Fastball s
101 Logan 8 0-1 0 1 92 Fastball s
102 Logan 8 0-2 0 1 91 Fastball b
103 Logan 8 1-2 0 1 78 Curve b
104 Logan 8 2-2 0 1 92 Fastball f
105 Logan 8 2-2 0 1 78 Curve t K looking
106 Langerhans 8 0-0 1 1 90 Fastball f
107 Langerhans 8 0-1 1 1 93 Fastball b
108 Langerhans 8 1-1 1 1 92 Fastball f
109 Langerhans 8 1-2 1 1 90 Fastball b
110 Langerhans 8 2-2 1 1 91 Fastball h HOMERUN (RF)
Josh Towers vs Washington, Sunday 17 June (Phillips catching)
No. Batter Inning Count Outs Runners Velocity Pitch Result AB Result
1 Guzman 1 0-0 0 86 Fastball b
2 Guzman 1 1-0 0 85 Fastball f
3 Guzman 1 1-1 0 78 Change f
4 Guzman 1 1-2 0 81 Slider s K swinging
5 Belliard 1 0-0 1 86 Fastball h F 8
6 Zimmerman 1 0-0 2 86 Fastball t
7 Zimmerman 1 0-1 2 87 Fastball f
8 Zimmerman 1 0-2 2 82 Slider h P 4
9 Young 2 0-0 0 80 Change t
10 Young 2 0-1 0 85 Fastball f
11 Young 2 0-2 0 84 Slider h DOUBLE (liner to LF)
12 Kearns 2 0-0 0 2 79 Slider t
13 Kearns 2 0-1 0 2 85 Fastball h DOUBLE (liner to RF)
14 Schneider 2 0-0 0 2 86 Fastball h G 63
15 Batista 2 0-0 1 3 87 Fastball b
16 Batista 2 1-0 1 3 81 Slider s
17 Batista 2 1-1 1 3 88 Fastball f
18 Batista 2 1-2 1 3 84 Slider f
19 Batista 2 1-2 1 3 88 Fastball b
20 Batista 2 2-2 1 3 88 Fastball h SINGLE (grounder CF)
21 Fick 2 0-0 1 1 88 Fastball b
22 Fick 2 1-0 1 1 88 Fastball b
23 Fick 2 2-0 1 1 87 Fastball h LDP 43
24 Langerhans 3 0-0 0 85 Fastball f
25 Langerhans 3 0-1 0 88 Fastball f
26 Langerhans 3 0-2 0 88 Fastball t K looking
27 Guzman 3 0-0 1 74 Curve t
28 Guzman 3 0-1 1 88 Fastball b
29 Guzman 3 1-1 1 87 Fastball h G 43
30 Belliard 3 0-0 2 83 Slider b
31 Belliard 3 1-0 2 86 Fastball h G 53
32 Zimmerman 4 0-0 0 86 Fastball h HOMERUN (LF)
33 Young 4 0-0 0 88 Fastball t
34 Young 4 0-1 0 80 Slider f
35 Young 4 0-2 0 89 Fastball s K swinging
36 Kearns 4 0-0 1 78 Slider b
37 Kearns 4 1-0 1 82 Slider s
38 Kearns 4 1-1 1 83 Fastball h SINGLE (soft liner CF)
39 Schneider 4 0-0 1 1 83 Slider b
40 Schneider 4 1-0 1 1 88 Fastball f
41 Schneider 4 1-1 1 1 82 Change b
42 Schneider 4 2-1 1 1 90 Fastball h GDP 643
43 Batista 5 0-0 0 82 Slider t
44 Batista 5 0-1 0 78 Slider h F 7
45 Fick 5 0-0 1 76 Curve t
46 Fick 5 0-1 1 82 Change h SINGLE (liner LF)
47 Langerhans 5 0-0 1 1 87 Fastball b
48 Langerhans 5 1-0 1 1 89 Fastball f
49 Langerhans 5 1-1 1 1 87 Fastball f
50 Langerhans 5 1-2 1 1 82 Slider b
51 Langerhans 5 2-2 1 1 91 Fastball b
52 Langerhans 5 3-2 1 1 81 Slider b WALK
53 Guzman 5 0-0 1 12 84 Slider t
54 Guzman 5 0-1 1 12 91 Fastball b
55 Guzman 5 1-1 1 12 91 Fastball f
56 Guzman 5 1-2 1 12 90 Fastball b
57 Guzman 5 2-2 1 12 84 Slider h FC 36
58 Belliard 5 0-0 2 13 83 Slider s
59 Belliard 5 0-1 2 13 82 Slider h SINGLE (grounder CF)
60 Zimmerman 5 0-0 2 12 82 Slider h FC 64
61 Young 6 0-0 0 74 Curve f
62 Young 6 0-1 0 82 Slider s
63 Young 6 0-2 0 88 Fastball h G 43
64 Kearns 6 0-0 1 89 Fastball b
65 Kearns 6 1-0 1 89 Fastball f
66 Kearns 6 1-1 1 90 Fastball h G 43
67 Schneider 6 0-0 2 79 Slider b
68 Schneider 6 1-0 2 82 Change s
69 Schneider 6 1-1 2 88 Fastball h G 63
70 Batista 7 0-0 0 88 Fastball t
71 Batista 7 0-1 0 88 Fastball f
72 Batista 7 0-2 0 88 Fastball b
73 Batista 7 1-2 0 80 Slider b
74 Batista 7 2-2 0 86 Fastball h F 8
75 Fick 7 0-0 1 84 Slider b
76 Fick 7 1-0 1 88 Fastball b
77 Fick 7 2-0 1 82 Change h L 3
78 Langerhans 7 0-0 2 83 Change t
79 Langerhans 7 0-1 2 83 Slider b
80 Langerhans 7 1-1 2 88 Fastball t
81 Langerhans 7 1-2 2 91 Fastball s K swinging
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20070617193220941