Billingsley has patiently bided his time in the Dodgers' pen this year, waiting for Jason Schmidt to accept the reality that he's not healthy or for the seemingly endless parade of Hendricksons and Tomkos to pitch their way out of the rotation or for Randy Wolf to stop being so damn awesome or something. As it turns out, Schmidt has finally trudged back onto the DL, and Billingsley has finally been given the opportunity to show off his stuff in LA's rotation.
Tonight's combatants have plenty in common, in addition to merely having escaped their respective pens by brute force. For one thing, they've both improved a lot since last year:
For Marcum's part it seems like an eternity ago that he was buried in the bullpen behind the Jays' own more 'proven' starting pitchers. As we're all aware, Marcum, like Billingsley, forced his way into the rotation on the strength of outstanding K/BB numbers. He struck out 30.6% of hitters as a reliever while walking only 8.3%. As a starter, he's outperformed everyone's expectations, compiling a 2.38 ERA, a 3-0 record and 1.12 WPA in 41.2 innings. His average of 6.0 innings per start is weighed down by a pitch count in his debut (in which he went 6 innings anyway) and an injury-shortened start June 3 against the White Sox.
I think Billingsley is pretty likely to cement his place in the Dodgers' rotation in similar fashion. His peripheral stats are light years ahead of where they were a year ago. He credits that improvement to increased aggressiveness and continuing to use all of his pitches, even in short relief appearances. As he tells Ben Bolch of the LA Times, "Last year, I was pressing and just giving the hitters a little too much credit. I just always thought I had to be so perfect with my pitches, and that's what allowed me to get way behind in the count to the hitters." Young pitchers who just had the Great Revelation all seem to say that, don't they?
(Oh yeah... he's young. Did I mention he's 22? He's 22. Going on 23 in July.)
Anyway, stuffwise, Billingsley has a lot in common with Dustin McGowan. He throws in the high 90s with his heater - maybe not quite as hard when he's pitching as a starter; we'll see - and he's got a pair of nasty breaking balls in his slider and hook. The slider comes in in the high 80s and breaks hard sideways; the curve clocks in around 80 and breaks 12-6. He makes a bunch of Pirates look like Pirates on the first highlight listed here. Apparently he also throws a changeup occasionally. (So does A.J. Burnett.)
Grady Little wants Billingsley to focus on keeping pitch counts down, according to the Dodgers' official site's Ken Gurnick. "We have to make sure he doesn't lose sight of the way he's pitched just because he's a starting pitcher. He needs the same approach."
Although Billingsley looks like a tough matchup for the Jays, they're in luck - he will be on a 55-to-60-pitch leash, says Bolch.
Little says, "We're certainly not going to push him too far in his first time or two. We feel by his third start he should be hopefully ready to go 90, 95 pitches." And the Dodgers' bullpen isn't in any condition to go 9 rounds after last night's mauling, in which the Dodgers used their two big guns and hung one of their long guys out to dry. Brett Tomko threw 53 pitches, Joe Beimel 13, Jonathan Broxton 17 and Takashi Saito 14. That leaves Rudy Seanez and Mark Hendrickson fresh. Such is life when you only have six relievers, I guess... (Are there any other arguments for the 7-man bullpen?)
So the deck's stacked in the Jays' favor. Although, I'm pretty sure Marcum was on a reasonably short leash in his first start, and the Devil Rays sort of didn't get their first hit of that game until the seventh inning.
Yep. That's tonight's ballgame. Nice little under-the-radar pitching matchup. Billingsley and Marcum, 7:07 at the Dome. Should be fun while it lasts. I'll be there.