The Indians a game 7-3 tonight because of a strong effort by Justin Masterson. Masterson went six innings and gave up three runs. After giving up two runs in the first inning, he looked overpowering from innings two through five (including four strikeouts in the second). He began to labor in the sixth inning with a pitch count over 100, but got through it, and turned it over to the bullpen. On offense, the Indians took advantage of the opportunities that they were given, and managed to string together hits to score their runs.
Erik Bedard looked sharp, but seemed to wear down quickly, as he is still recovering from a knee injury. Bedard could be a great deadline pickup for boston if he pitches to his ability down the stretch, especially with the updated prognosis of clay buchholz. He has the ability to shutdown an offense and put up high strikeout totals with a mix of a two seem fastballs, curveballs, changeups, and the occasional cutter.
If the Indians make the playoffs, it will be interesting to see who starts game one of a playoff series between Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez. The Tribe got Ubaldo to be a lot of the rotation guy, but Masterson has clearly emerged as the teams ace. Assuming that two teams from the AL East make the playoffs, the Indians will either play the Yankees of the red sox. Including tonight, Masterson has great numbers against both teams, with a combined 2.37 ERA in 57 innings combined against the two teams in his career. He's been even better this year, with eight shutout innings in his only appearance, and now two strong outings against the red sox.
Masterson's maturation has been phenomenal this year. Dating back to college, a lot of people thought Masterson would end up in the bullpen because of his low arm slot, and lack of a changeup or other pitch to neutralize his platoon split (see previous post for information about platoon split description). Before this year, he had about a year and a half with the Tribe. In this time he has obliterated righties (Career OPS below .600), and the only question about him was if he would be able to limit the damage from lefties. He has done a great job of this in 2011. This year, his OPS against lefties is almost 100 points lower than previously in his career, with the same batting average on balls in play.
The differnce in Masterson between this year and previous years is his repertoire. He has always been a sinker/slider pitcher, using those two pitches the majority of the time to wipe out right handed hitters. The difference this year, is that he has essentially scrapped his changeup for a hard four seem fastball.
He works mostly low in the zone with his sinker around 92mph and his slider around 84. But he keeps hitters honest by blowing their doors off with his four seemer high in the zone at 96. This pitch changes the hitters eye level, and is significantly faster than anything else that he shows them. Everything for Masterson works off of his sinker, and instead of keeping hitters off balance by subtracting speed with his changeup, he's doing it by adding speed with his newly found four seem fastball.
Masterson is getting lucky with regard to his suppressed homerun rate, but his increased control (walking 1.2 less batters per nine innings than a year ago), along with his ability to hold left handers in check, has resulted in him becoming what the Indians thought Fausto Carmona would become. A groundball pitcher who had a passable strikeout rate who would generate a lot of groundballs, with a low walk total, and keeping the ball in the park. Masterson's ability to get a lot of groundballs, without walking many batters, while striking out over 7 batters per nine innings, is a recipe for success that should keep him at the top of the Indians rotation for the rest of this year, and for years to come.
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