Rough times for young pitchers
If Joel Zumaya’s outing Wednesday was partly a result of Zumaya becoming too confident, Friday was the outing that proves that even Zumaya can be hittable.
This wasn’t Zumaya struggling to find the strike zone. I’m not sure it was even Zumaya leaving pitches over the heart of the plate. If anything, Joe Mauer’s go-ahead hit should be more of a humbling experience than Wednesday. Zumaya made a pretty good pitch, and a batting champ found a way to drop it in for a hit. It wasn’t a mammoth home run like Ken Griffey Jr. last year; it was arguably tougher.
Zumaya knows he can’t simply overpower hitters. That’s why he has worked to mix in his curveball. But he’s learning now that good hitters can still sit on his fastball if the curveball isn’t going to be an out pitch. Young pitchers, as good as they are, go through that.
It’s tough being Zumaya right now, but it’s also tough being Andrew Miller, who was hit around for eight runs (seven earned) on 10 hits in 4 2/3 innings Friday night for Class A Lakeland.
Jason Beck
I am kind of glad this is happening to Joel right now! I remember hearing his “over confident” statements in Spring Training. Such as, I am going to be a “different” pitcher this year. I don’t have to always rely on my fastball. Well you do if you can’t throw your curveball!! It just went so easy for him last year, that you could sense there would be a wake up for him this year! The whole team is coming to see that the League has made major adjustments with them! Pitchers for the other teams are pitching the Tigers like it is playoff Time. Watch these games they are placing their pitches so carefully! Now the other teams are just sitting on Joel, They know Jones throws strikes, and Rodney is wild, just sit on his “sub par this year” fastball! It will be interesting to see if the Tigers can adjust to the other teams. Do they have the talent to do this??? We will see.
I am sure that Joel feels bad about Friday night. I was there, I was angry and then to see the picture of him in the paper, I felt bad that I was mad.
It seem like way to often this year, (8 times to be exact) that we are winning the starting pitcher throws great and the bullpen comes in and its gone. I have to say it has been very frustrating as a fan, as a player I am sure worse. It doesn’t help when there are only about three of four guys that are hitting the baseball right now consistently. Your not going to win many games that way. To me there is just a little too much inconsistency all over the team right now. Hopefully they will figure it out pretty soon. I know that there are a lot of games to be played and it is still early. But as many of you remember last year it was one game that kept of from winning the division?? I think that they are still going to be fine, you can just tell they are not clicking right now.
GO TIGERS. I’ll be there through thick and thin.