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May 25, 2013
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Monday, July 30, 2012THT Poetry: ICHIRO! SplitsWhat better way to highlight a trend in one of Ichiro Suzuki's splits ...   ... than with a split haiku: ICHIRO! Splits By Ed DeCaria I Can No Longer Hit Inside Pitches Thrown By Righties OR Lefties ! © 2012 Ed DeCaria, All Rights Reserved What is a split haiku? I just made it up. It's the familiar 5-7-5 syllable count for haiku, but each of the three lines is split visually into two to form the I-C-H-I-R-O-! acrostic. Data for both graphs comes from the PITCHf/x Hitter Profile for Ichiro Suzuki (2007-2012) at Baseball Prospectus as reported on 7/27/12. And That HappenedBraves 6, Phillies 2: Pretty good day for me yesterday. I took Mookie and Carlo to an amusement park and the Braves swept the Phillies. All I needed as a nice steak or something to cap the day and it would have been perfection. Only the Astros, Rockies and Cubs have a bigger division deficit than the Phillies do in all of baseball. Dodgers 4, Giants 1: Clayton Kershaw tossed a five-hit shutout to help the Dodgers sweep the Giants and now the NL West essentially tied up. The Dodgers outscored the Giants 19-3 in the series. I gotta tell ya, I was prepared to watch the Dodgers slowly slip away throughout the second half, but they ain't doin' it. Looks like we'll have a nice little race out there. Reds 7, Rockies 2: Ten in a row for the Reds. They gotta be hoping Joey Votto doesn't come back at this point, right? OK, maybe not. But you know some nudnik is gonna suggest that there's a chemistry problem when he does come back and the Reds actually stop winning every single baseball game. Mariners 7, Royals 6: Wait, another sweep? This is starting to look like last weekend. King Felix pitched well but got a no-decision because of his pen. Dude just doesn't know how to win. Twins 5, Indians 1: How about one more sweep? Brian Duensing got the spot start to cover for the departed Francisco Liriano. He had no idea. Found out the news from his Twitter followers and then saw it on the team website. Worked out nice for him all the same (6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER) Cubs 4, Cardinals 2: Anthony Rizzo with the walkoff homer in the tenth, finishing a 3 for 4 day. Walked once too. The dude is hope. Mets 5, Diamondbacks 1: R.A. Dickey won his 14th game. The Mets split the series, somewhat arresting their precipitous post-break slide. Rays 2, Angels 0: Zack Greinke made his Angels debut. And, aside from looking weird in that uniform, did OK, allowing two runs in seven innings while punching out eight. But he got no help from the offense while Jeremy Hellickson and three of his mates combined to shut out Anaheim. Nationals 11, Brewers 10: Michael Morse hit a game-tying, two-run homer in the ninth inning, then hit a two-run double in the 11th which provided the winning margin. Not bad. Oh, and this was ridiculous. Orioles 6, Athletics 1: Wei-Yin Chen struck out 12 and Matt Wieters hit a three-run homer to help the O's avoid the sweep. Astros 9, Pirates 5: Another avoided sweep, as the Astros finally snap their losing streak. Marwin Gonzalez had three hits and drove in three. He had been 0 for his previous 16. Fun Fact: Gonzalez has, at every level of baseball he's played since he was a teenager, driven in three runs on July 29th. Actually that's a lie, bus since only like three of you guys pull for the Astros and know who Marwin Gonzalez is I coulda just left that hangin' out there and none of you would have been able to dispute it. Tigers 4, Blue Jays 1: Jhonny Peralta homered twice and drove in all four of Detroit's runs to help the Tigers, you guessed it, avoid a three game sweep. Marlins 5, Padres 4: Justin Ruggiano hit the game winner in the tenth of what could be Josh Johnson's last start as a Marlin. If so, somewhat dubious -- six walks -- but he was effective enough to keep his team in the game. Red Sox 3, Yankees 2: It's Pedro Ciriaco's world. He's just letting us live in it for a little while. Rangers 2, White Sox 0: Eight shutout innings from Scott Feldman. Now four games against the Angels. Chris Sale and “dead arm”In mid-May, I wrote about Chris Sale's faulty elbow and discussed valgus stress in the elbow as it relates to sidearm pitchers. Now there are reports that Sale will be shut down for a start or two due to "dead arm." Well, I bet many of you are asking... What is dead arm, anyway?Dead arm is the catch-all diagnosis for a pitcher who's losing velocity and/or command of their pitches, blaming it on fatigue. Physiologically, there's not much to this diagnosis - it's a description of symptoms rather than an actual inspection on the root causes. Chris Sale's velocity has been steadily dropping over the year:  It's also worth noting that Sale threw all of 71 innings in 2011 out of the bullpen, and in 2012 he's already at 124 innings split between the bullpen and in the rotation (predominantly in the rotation, of course). We've talked about how sidearmers are more susceptible to valgus stress due to their mechanics, and this can play a role in the so-called "dead arm" issues that pitchers experience. As pitchers throw more and more innings at game intensities, three major physiological changes occur: -They tend to gain external rotation range of motion around the shoulder joint and lose internal rotation at the same time -The muscle tissues in the forearm develop adhesions as they are stressed while stabilizing the pitching elbow in the delivery -The ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) can become stretched out while holding the bones of the arm together The first two are all but guaranteed to happen, while the third happens if the pitcher has improper force application technique (mechanics) or other issues that can lead to a UCL sprain/rupture. Most knowledgeable trainers will stretch their pitchers into internal rotation and provide exercises that passively engage the external rotators of the shoulder to help restore ROM in IR and strength in ER without a concomitant "bounce" that happens in the late-cocking phase of the delivery to help mitigate issues with the first physiological change.  A pitcher (me) about to exit late-cocking phase Forearm adhesions and soreness can be treated with myofascial release using items like The Stick, foam rollers, static stretching, and manual therapy from athletic trainers. There's not much that can be done with the last change - if your UCL is being stretched or gradually torn due to poor mechanics, that requires a mechanical change and better attention to pitching arm fitness. Performing specific exercises that improve forearm rotation near the time of ball release will help, though the only real way to know is to use high-speed video to perform a biomechanical analysis on the pitcher in question to get valgus stress levels before and after changes are made to verify things are going in the direction the coaches and trainers want. So... what's going to happen down the road?Only the White Sox can determine how to approach this particular case. While shutting down Sale for a few starts and getting him going again sounds like a good idea, pitching isn't an activity that is easily dropped and picked up again - even if Sale's throwing bullpens and simulated games, competing in a game is a completely different activity. Pitchers throw with more intensity and cause more stress to their arms when pitching in competitive games compared to when throwing on the side - this has been verified time and time again with results being published from various biomechanical labs. While Keith Law isn't high on Chris Sale's mechanics from the standpoint of a starting pitcher, with a guy this good, it's hard to keep him in the bullpen if he can show this kind of dominance in the starting rotation. I'd keep him in the rotation, limit his innings this year (fat chance given the AL Central playoff race), and work on slight tweaks in the off-season to address mechanical issues and build strength in his pitching arm in hopes of mitigating issues down the line. One thing's for certain, though: Sale's precipitous drop in velocity is a real problem and highly indicative of some sort of injury to the pitching arm. Just because he's not reporting pain doesn't mean he's not injured - plenty of pitchers throw while injured though they display no symptoms. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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