Saturday, May 9, 2009

Matchup for G31 - Padres at Astros

If you look at the standings this morning, you'll see something different. A team underneath "Houston." The Pirates and Astros have the same 12-17 record, but because of the two games the Astros took in Pittsburgh...5th place! Brian Moehler will go out and try to make this thing a streak this fine evening against the Padres versus Kevin Correia.

Brian Moehler
We saw a softer side of Brian Moehler last time out - one slightly more reminiscent of 2008. Let's take a look at the difference:

First two starts:
4IP, 15H/12ER, 1K:2BB. Five swinging strikes. .600/.643/.800

Last start:
5IP, 8H/2ER, 5K:2BB. Eight swinging strikes.

While the 10 baserunners in five innings isn't exactly desirable, let's hope that May Moehler is here to stay, and April Moehler can stay away.

Since we're talking about two different Moehlers, we're going to skip the splits for this start, and pick it back up May 15. But let's look at Moehler's career vs current Padres (4 AB minimum):








PadreHxABXBH/RBIK:BBAVG/OBP/SLG
Gonzalez5x70/21:0.714/.714/.714
Eckstein2x40/20:0.500/.500/.500
Giles6x162/31:3.375/.474/.625
Blanco1x41/01:0.250/.250/.500


Kevin Correia

Correia spent parts of the last six seasons with the Giants - throwing almost 400 innings - before coming to the Padres in '09. He has started five games this season as the Padres SP4 and is 0-2 with a 5.92 ERA.

Last three starts:






Date-OppIPH/ERK:BBGB/FBPit/Str
4/24 vPIT53/33:48/795/51
4/29 @COL56/34:46/9101/59
5/4 vCOL3.18/54:26/779/48


You can see that strikeout to walk ratio is pretty low, but he should be rested as he only threw 79 pitches in his last outing. Correia hasn't thrown more than 5IPs since his first start of the season, when he went six innings against the Dodgers.

Let's do the splits:
vs Righties: 14x44, .318/.340/.409, 11K:2BB
vs Lefties: 13x47, .277/.452/.362, 10K:14BB (that's a lot of walks to lefties)

After First-Pitch Strikes (56): .245/.327/.265, 17K:5BB
After First-Pitch Balls (43): .367/.524/.600, 4K:11BB

RISP: 6x22, .273/.414/.409, 3K:6BB
Runners on: 13x37, .351/.490/.486, 6K:11BB
2OwRISP: 3x10, .300/.500/.600, 1K:0BB

A couple of interesting notes: Correia has not allowed a stolen base, has only allowed four extra-base hits, and the two home runs he allowed - both against Colorado - came with two outs. And perhaps most interesting, if the ball is hit to the outfield off Correia - which has happened 36 times, it has landed for a hit 24 of those times.