So far, so good, Edwin Diaz
by Rob Rogan • July 25, 2020
It might be slightly hyperbolic to call 2020 a hellscape, but the good news is that baseball is officially back to return some sense of normalcy to our everyday lives. Despite feeling like we’re in the opening montage of a post-apocalyptic movie, baseball provides a welcome reprieve from the onslaught of seemingly endless bad news.
Yesterday the Mets held to their annual “win on opening day” tradition, with Jacob deGrom laughing at the concepts of “rust” and “normal human capability” as the Mets triumphed over the Braves to open the 2020 season. Of course, there was never any real concern regarding how deGrom would perform this season beyond his chances at a Cy Young award three-peat. One of his pitching staff cohorts had plenty of questions heading into 2020, however, though he certainly put our fears to rest for at least one night.
One of the toughest aspects of writing about baseball when there’s no baseball (besides the whole no baseball thing) is that there is no data to analyze and discuss. We’d be well past the halfway point of the season if we were living outside the darkest timeline, and we’d know things like whether or not Edwin Diaz bounced back or continued to shrivel like a salted slug under the bright New York City lights. Instead, we start our assessment of his sophomore year in Queens just a week shy of what would have normally been the July trade deadline. So far, so good, as the saying goes.
Back in January I wrote about Diaz’s poor performance in 2019 and the differences in things like the spin rate, release point, and movement on his pitches when compared to his stellar 2018 season. In summary, his opponents seemingly just kind of knocked him around all year without an apparent explanation. The process appeared solid yet the results weren’t ideal, which is to say 2020 was more or less about hoping that continued good execution would lead to better results. Not exactly a prospect to be excited about, for sure.
Diaz was thrown right into the fire and tasked with protecting a 1-0 lead while facing the heart of the Braves order in his 2020 debut, of course. Despite being slightly wild at times, he looked very good against a set of tough left-handed hitters. He induced a grounder on his first pitch to retire Ozzie Albies, walked Freddie Freeman after almost giving up a homer, then finished the game by striking out both Marcell Ozuna (the lone right-hander) and Matt Adams. The pitch location chart below, taken from Baseball Savant, shows the location of his thirteen pitches.
2 comments:
Now, not so good
I think he tried to get the same hitter out with the same pitch that worked yesterday. This time Ozuna was waiting for it. I think the inability to tack on an extra run in the late innings hurt them as well. Thought Rojas should have pinch ran for Ramos when he got on base to lead off late in the game.
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