Aaron Harang's Easter Special
- April 12th, 2009
- Posted in 2009 Season . Aaron Harang
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- IP -9
- H – 3
- ER – 0
- BB – 0
- K – 9
Thats the line that Aaron Harang put up on Easter Sunday as the Reds beat the Pirates 2-0. I figured this would be the perfect time to break down his game.
First lets look at his selection of pitches.
Harang mixed up his pitches very well. These pitch labels are using the MLB pitch types, so they might not be 100% accurate, but they are pretty close. Either way, there was a good mixture of pitches. Lets look at how hard he was throwing each pitch.
Harangs fastball wasn’t going to blow anyone away as it averaged just over 88 MPH and topped out at 91.6 MPH. His change up wasn’t much slower, averaging 85 MPH. This next chart is the key to why Harang was able to be so dominant on Sunday.
In total Harang was able to throw strikes 75% of the time and he was also able to throw every pitch for strikes at a high rate. The hitters couldn’t sit on any pitch and Harang was able to keep them guessing wrong. Here is what he looked like to all of the batters.
I enjoyed the information.
How does this compare to similiar starts at the same time of year? I know many people are saying his velocity is down.
From what I remember and looking back at Gameday for his first two starts last year – this seems like very typical early season velocity for Harang
not to take anything away from Harang, but he also seems to have been the recipient of a somewhat generous strike zone
Compared to his second start last year, his Velocity is slightly up on his fastball. Last year in his second start it was an average of 87.59 MPH.
Thanks Doug
Yeah, one thing that comes up with this is that umpires often call a pitch on where its caught, but this measures where the pitch was as it reached the front of home plate. So any ball with break on it that catches the back of the plate, or breaks enough that the catcher catches is behind the plate but it may have missed the plate by a few inches as it got to the front of the plate, it’s not a strike here.
Plus there is always the old saying that if you are throwing strikes you will get a few calls that weren’t strikes. Harang may have gotten a few of those calls. As a Reds fan, I won’t complain a bit lol.
yeah, i’m happy for harang. after “getting” to pitch in relief last year, he had it pretty rough.