RJ uses a splitter as his changeup

I think your comments about Flaherty giving away location are incisive. But I think the difference-maker is that Johnson is not throwing it hard enough to get by with the batter knowing location. FYI, Varitek also does this a lot…sometimes to the point where he’s actually standing up to receive the pitch. Simply put, the difference between a strike-out or pop up and a dinger in the bleachers is about 3 miles an hour. If there’s more giddy-up on the ball, Rowand and Widger do not hit home runs and Konerko wouldn’t have gotten a flat slider to crush. Johnson doesn’t feature anything that is a real change of pace. His slider when it bites succeeds because of location not lack of velocity. Considering RJ is 41, he’d better start working on a change-up over the winter ‘cos he it ain’t likely he’ll see the other side of 95 anytime soon.

I was thinking about the standing up thing while watching the game yesterday. I think the catchers know the batters see them do it, and that’s why they’re doing it. If the catcher stands up, the batter knows it’s going to be a high fastball, and is much more likely to swing at it. “Hey, I know what’s coming, I’m gonna knock this one out of the park”, that kind of thing. On the other hand, a high fastball, particularly 94+ mph, is exceedingly difficult to hit, even if you do know that it’s coming. I think the catchers are standing up to get batters to swing at pitches they have very little chance of hitting and would ordinarily take for a ball.

Although Chris Widger probably showed what happens when you tell the batter it’s coming, and they do happen to make contact with it.

I agree about the standing up business. I hate it. Catch the ball from the squat or the batter knows what’s going on. There has also been a lot of chatter lately on sports talk radio about hitters sneaking a peak. Sometimes it doesn’t need to be sneaky if they put it right there in front of you!

This is a RJ pattern c.2005; 29 HR’s now. This wasn’t really an aberration but rather more of the same, just all in one inning.

Threads like this are why I love blogs so much and hate stuff like Baseball Tonight. I can’t believe a catcher would do that. Another thing that has bugged me is the habit of catchers standing up when they want a high pitch. The batter has to be able to pick that up in his peripheral vision somehow.

FWIW, in the post-game, Flash said that the Sox batters made an adjustment in the 4th – he seemed pretty sure of this. Too bad it took them 6 batters to come up with the counter to that adjustment.

Hey it happens. Pitchers give up big innings every so often

I have thought this game over a bunch of different ways tonight. What happened to Randy Johnson in the 4th inning?

My answer is that John Flaherty is inadvertently responsible. In the first 3 innings Johnson was throwing in the low to high 90′s, almost every pitch. When Flaherty wanted a pitch down he would bang his glove on the dirt, sometimes once, sometimes twice. It’s a common practice lately among catchers, and it is used to call for location more than pitch. I believe Flaherty got into the habit of banging the ground for certain pitches, because Johnson was not matching his location as the innings went on.

After the disastrous 4th Flaherty stopped using this signal, and Johnson was able to fool the hitters, although his velocity dropped considerably. Only occasionally did he hit the mid 90′s again, and it was with great effort. However, without this audible signal, Johnson was back in control.

The Yankees need to review the films and caution Big John about the idea. I like him, but I think he inadvertently betrayed his pitcher today.

It was so exciting to see RJ mow down the Sox in the early innings, and then … it was unbelievable. You know how baseball keeps giving you things you’ve never seen before? How about a complete game by a pitcher which includes 8 shutout innings, plus an inning where he gives up 4 home runs, 6 hits, and 6 runs?

Bizarre.