After starting the year off horribly, Javier Vazquez seems to have righted the proverbial ship. Four of his last five starts have been absolutely great and in those five starts, he’s put up this line:
32.2 IP, 19 H, 10 ER, 12 BB, 31 K, 3 HR, 2.81 ERA, 0.9627 WHIP, 2.58 K/BB.
While this isn’t what we expected from Javy, it’s certainly a lot more like him than the awful start he had to the year.
Yesterday, we saw Javy at his best this season–despite the four walks–and he was able to mix his pitches well. He threw 43 fastballs (32 four seam, 11 two seam), 21 changeups, 16 sliders, and 26 curveballs. No one pitch dominated his pitch selection and he was able to use all of those pitches effectively.
The best part about the start yesterday was that Javy was able to get 10 swinging strikes on his changeup. This tells me he was keeping Toronto’s hitters way off balance and had them looking fastball. For Javy, who’s seen a dip in his velocity this season, his changeup is likely to be his biggest pitch going forward. His average fastball velocity yesterday was under 90 MPH (89.48) and his maximum velocity was 91.7 MPH. But, his changeup had an average velocity of 79.30 MPH, more than a ten MPH difference from his fastball. That difference is exactly what we like to see out of a pitcher. If Vazquez can keep that changeup working, he’ll continue to be successful. It will also help improve against lefties, who’ve given him trouble thus far in 2010.
With cautious optimism, I’m thinking that Javy has definitely turned a corner. From here on out, it’s very likely that we’ll see the Javy we thought we’d be seeing when he was acquired in the winter. Hopefully, this string of mostly great performances by Vazquez also means the end of the booing at home. This guy’s a very talented pitcher who hit a rough spot to start the year. Now, he’s getting himself right and the Yankees will reap the benefits.
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2 Responses to Javy Back on Track
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TIQ IQ
Glad to see Javy’s back on track and that leads me to another related issue – what kind of job is pitching coach Dave Eiland doing for the Yankees? First off, I wish Eiland the best with whatever personal issues he has to address. That said, I have mixed feelings about his performance as the Yankees pitching coach. During his tenure, the Yankees have done a very good job of developing minor league pitchers, but that hasn’t translated into success at the major league level. I’m not sure if its because most didn’t have the ‘stuff’ to be successful in the ‘bigs’, or if Eiland hasn’t been particularly effective in maximizing the development of these arms. What is certain is that he has had difficulties developing Joba, Hughes and Kennedy into consitently successful major league pitchers. And, the bullpen is struggling once again this year. Plus, you’d like to see the pitching coach be able to tweak guys like Burnett and Javy and make them more effective as well.
Again – mixed feelings about Eiland’s performance as the Yankee’s pitching coach, so I’m curious about what others think?
I am still hesitant to say he is back, mostly because of the opponents he has faced in his last 5 starts: Toronto, Baltimore, Minnesota (the bad start), the Mets, and Detroit. Of the four teams he did well against, only Toronto is in the top half of baseball in terms of runs scored. However, I have to say that his starts are encouraging and a step in the right direction at the very least.