That's A Shame.
Three starts in to what should be a tour of the Twins minor league system rebuilding a surgically repair arm Francisco Liriano looks as comfortable as an enema on the mound. He is a shadow of the F-Bomb we familiarized ourselves with in 2006. So far in three starts in 2008 have yielded an average Game Score of 28 - a tiny 15 in the most recent.
What is most disturbing is not the loss itself, but rather his peripheral numbers at this point and the story they tell. After retiring just Mark Sweeney and being substituted for Brain Bass on Thursday afternoon, Liriano is carrying a paltry strike out rate of 12% and a bloated 23% walk rate. Simply, Liriano is not locating his fastball and therefore unable to use any off-speed pitch, let alone the facsimile that was his slider, to obtain a missed bat.
After walking Kurt Suzuki to commence the bottom of the first, La Velle E. Neal suggests that Liriano began to take velocity off of his fastball in order to place it better. While it may be true that he was trying too hard find the strike zone, he actually threw above 90 mph as the inning progressed. The three walks were disturbing. Liriano had trouble establishing his fastball, throwing it in the zone only 52% of the time. When he was only able to locate his change-up in the strike zone 33% of the time, no Athletic batter - all of whom practice very good plate discipline - were not going to chase the off-speed pitch.
Liriano threw 35 pitches to 9 batters, only to record one out while walking three, giving hits to five and six runs, all earned. Analyzing pitch f/x data reveals that Liriano used his fastball (one that was ranging from 88-90) approximately 71% of the time and tossing what was categorized as a change-up 28% of time while throwing just one slider to Rajai Davis, who ended up being the last batter Liriano would face. In retrospect, the pitch f/x shows that Liriano had several pitches that probably were strikes however when it appeared evident that he was not hitting his spots, the umpire certainly was not going to give him the benefit of the doubt. This forced Liriano to throw the ball directly over the middle of the plate. As indicated in the chart below, too many pitches landed within the middle of the strike zone. A revamped, all-right-handed A's line up feasted on the fastballs (all five hits were collected on the pitch) while seven times Liriano tried to throw the substandard fastball by the batters and three times it was raked for a base hit.
| 2% | 2% | 2% |
| 5% |
| Pitch Chart |
|
|
|
| 8% |
|
|
| < 20% |
|
| 5% |
| 20% | 5% | 14% |
| 10-20% |
|
|
| 5% |
|
| 2% |
| 5-9% |
|
| 2% | 8% | 2% | 2% | 2% |
| > 5% |
|
Ron Gardenhire provided the media with post-game speculatory quotes that hinted that Liriano needs more conditioning. "We've seen him down there and up here, and now comes the time to figure out what the next best step is for Frankie to get him back to where we need him," Gardenhire said. "That's what we need to decide." After this, Rochester's manager Stan Cliburn appears prophetic. Cliburn had told Gardenhire and the front office that he believe Liriano needed additional innings in the minors prior to being major league ready. Had Gardenhire taken Cliburn's advice, Liriano's confidence might not need extra massaging while building not only his arm physically with another tour of Triple-A before May ends, but now his psyche needs work as well.
