Yesterday, I penned (typed?) a post about how I wasn’t expecting much out of Dustin Moseley during last night’s game. Well, during the game against the Indians last night, I was very, very pleasantly surprised.
After a rocky first inning during which he threw 31 pitches, Moseley settled down and ended up throwing six solid innings, allowing one earned run on four hits and two walks while striking out four. He also had a .261 WPA, the highest of the game. Way to go, Dustin. That’s a hell of a spot start. Let’s jump into the Pitch F/X and see how Mr. Moseley got the job done last night at the Jake (yes, I know it’s called Progressive Field but I refuse to call it that; it’s forever Jacobs Field in my mind).
Moseley threw a total of 83 pitches, 55 of them for strikes (66.27%).
His four seamer, he threw 37 (25 strikes), averaged 90.45 MPH and he maxed out at 92.5 MPH. He didn’t get any swings and misses on the four seamer, but he was throwing it for strikes which allowed him to set up his non-fastball pitches.
He threw 39 non-fastballs last night–13 changeups (10 strikes), 9 sliders (6 strikes), and 17 (10 strikes) curveballs. He got two whiffs on the deuce and one on the change.
Moseley also got eight ground balls compared to three fly balls against the Indians, which is always nice to see.
So it seems we got a glimpse of Moseley’s game: use the fastball to set up the offspeed stuff and get them to hit the ball on the ground. Dustin mixed his pitches very well last night and if he can keep doing that, the Yankees will have found a reliable fill in.
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5 Responses to Dustin's Night
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TIQ IQ
IT was just a deflated Indians team he went against but he showed a lot of things to be hopeful about going forward and with the Yankees offense as potent as it always is any game he goes 6 in he will have a chance to win no matter the runs he gives up.
Looks like the people who want to see Nova rushed up will have to wait… I for one don’t think it’s the best thing to do for Nova to throw him into the rotation right now on the best team in baseball with the expectations that Yankee fans have. If anything I would rather wait until rosters expand and use him out of the pen until next year and then maybe he can have a fixed starting competition with Chamberlain as well hahaha.
I thought Moseley threw a two-seamer. I’d love to see a picture of his grip; it doesn’t move nearly as much as Mitre’s sinker, but it still seems to have some significant run. Regardless of how he grips it, I would’ve figured he’d throw more fastballs than he has, given the action he gets on it.
It’s hard to rely on a fastball when you don’t get many swings and misses… Look at Chamberlain he has been throwing 95 this year but he just doesn’t get a lot of swing through.
Good point. It’s just that a lot of sinkerball-type guys throw a lot of fastballs (in order to get ground balls) and reserve their offspeed stuff for whiffs.
I honestly haven’t seen enough of Mosely to give a very informed opinion on the movement of his fastball but it seems to me overall his best pitch is his curveball and he more or less uses everything else to setup the pitch he has the most confidence in.
It also depends on if his ball has more movement down in the zone or across the zone and by that I mean if he is burying balls down towards the bottom of the zone and getting guys to top off into the dirt or if he is relying on more horizontal movement across the zone to get his ground balls.
Carmona for example has a sinker that really can dive down almost to your shoe tops as where AJ’s 2 seamer has a lot more horizontal movement.