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Saturday, July 14, 2012

Contextualizing Liriano’s start against Oakland


Facing the Athletics on Friday night, Francisco Liriano threw what was mostly a dominating game: eight innings, four hits, four runs, one walk, and 15 strikeouts. The one mistake was a fourth-inning grand slam to Jonny Gomes, and it was a costly one, as he and the Twins wound up losing the game.

Regardless, it was still a clinic in power-pitching: 30 of his 112 pitches were swinging strikes, which is the highest total in the majors this season. He mixed fastballs (six whiffs), sliders (17), and changeups (seven) to overpower the Oakland lineup. For reference/fun, below is a table with the highest swinging strike totals within a start, dating back to the beginning of the PITCHf/x era (2008, plus plenty of 2007 games).

#    Pitcher            Opponent  Date           Swinging Strikes
1    Johan Santana       TEX       2007-08-19     32
2    Tim Lincecum        ATL       2010-10-07     31
3    Francisco Liriano   OAK       2012-07-13     30     
4    John Smoltz         ARI       2007-08-19     29
5    CC Sabathia         TBA       2012-06-07     27
6    Johan Santana       TEX       2007-05-22     27  
7    Max Scherzer        PIT       2012-05-20     26       
8    Brandon Morrow      CLE       2010-05-05     26       
9    Chris Sale          TBA       2012-05-28     26
10   Clay Buchholz       TEX       2010-04-22     26

Posted by Lucas Apostoleris at 3:29pm (3) Comments