VB, they said that Peacock has been working on a two-seam fastball. Any observations? Even if there was no noticable movement, could you tell how often they squared up his fastball? IMO, having a fastball that is too easy to square seems to be what is holding him back.
Yes ... I was getting around to my report, and this figures in it. See also
http://www.spikesnstars.com/forums/index.php?topic=115857.0 where I posted some thoughts as the game progressed.
After watching Peacock last night, I was a bit surprised to see only one BB in the box score this morning. He took 53 pitches to get through the first two innings, and seemed to run every batter to a 3:2 count. He did settle down some by the 3rd or 4th, and appeared to get both stronger and more accurate as the game progressed. I am not the best at pitch recognition, but he seemed to have 4 basic pitches.
His "straight fastball" (probably a 4-seamer?) had almost no movement, but sat at 94-95 early and reached 96 several times in the 6th inning. It was often thrown for a strike and often hit hard (though sometimes foul).
He also had a somewhat slower pitch, probably the 2-seamer you refer to, that sat at 92-93 and had obvious movement. Very few batters were squaring it up, but that was partly because it was wild ... outside (to LHB) and/or high on a regular basis.
My guess watching him was that the two pitches above were used about equally and constituted 70-80% of his offerings.
He also threw a pitch in the high 80's that I guessed was a slider. It had some movement, but mostly seemed to be used to set up the FB ... Carlos usually set up outside, and that is where the pitch ended up. This was different than the ?2-seamer? which often had Carlos reaching for it.
The last pitch was (I think) a straight change ... it did not have much "curve" action that I could see, and ranged in speeds from about 75 to 83. He got a lot of missed bats on that one, especially from LHB.
My general sense was that he struggled some with control and got a little lucky on some hard-hit balls ... only one really great defensive play (by Marwin) but a lot of fortunate fielder placement.
The one outstanding defensive play saw Marwin charge across in front of 2B to barehand a slow chopper and gun a fast runner out at 1B by an eyelash. Everything else was solid but routine.
I shared most of my impressions of Springer and Singleton at the plate in the other thread. Briefly, Springer looked very good against Richmond (the starter) ... waiting out a 4-pitch walk in the first including a couple of close pitches and hammering a long HR in the third. He was fooled in the 6th by one of Richmond's slow curves for strike 3. Richmond essentially had two pitches - a 92-94mph FB and a 75-78 curve with only a rare offering somewhere in between. Justin Miller came on in the 7th and was more of a fastball/slider pitcher. Springer walked in his first appearance against him, watching a strike 2 FB catch the bottom of the zone, but having the discipline to take ball 4 on the next pitch in almost the same spot. He then looked bad of the only time last night in his final appearance, missing badly on strikes 2 & 3, both sliders away.
Singleton looked bad against Richmond, facing a steady diet of slow curves that seemed to baffle him. He finally made contact in the 6th with a sharply hit grounder to 2B. He looked much better against Miller ... swinging with authority and hitting the ball hard.
In other offensive observations, Ruben Sosa is small. Only about 1.1 Altuves. He is also very fast. He beat out an infield hit and stole two bases (though the umpire at second blew the call on the first one). He seemed to have a good approach at the plate, too. Justin Maxwell did not have a great night, but nothing really stood out about his ABs. Marwin sliced a double down the LF line but hit a frozen rope for a single later in the game. Grossman looked good in general, but his HR was a DellDiamond(tm) high fly to left. Laird, on the other hand, hammered one to almost straight-away center for the last two runs.
