Padres beat the Rockies 6-0 — Randy Wolf allows 1 hit, 4 walks, and no runs in 7 innings of work

Often times I hear people say that they wished a pitcher was working more efficiently on a given night. This happens when, let’s say, a guy is through 3 innings with 50 pitches, but has allowed 0 runs and k’ed 5 — or something like that. You want that type of performance, but you want it for 9 innings. I usually wonder if it’s correct to want the guy to be more “efficient” — and by efficient, I mean limiting the number of pitches thrown to each batter. I suppose there could be multiple definitions of efficient pitching (like pitches per inning or out), but I’m going with this one because I think it’s what people mean when they say that they want a pitcher to be more efficient. Of course, in a perfect world, a pitcher would throw 27 pitches and record 27 outs (or if he was on the Giants, he would continue to get an out for each of his pitches until his team scored a run).

Anyway, here’s my ‘theory’ (that is certainly, I’m sure, far from original): some pitchers, especially ones like Randy Wolf, benefit from throwing more pitches to each hitter. That is, they are better going deep into counts, just missing on a corner, allowing a guy to foul a pitch off, etc. Sure, you’d rather they get outs in more economic fashion, but as soon as they try to, they get hit hard.

Wolf’s career average pitches/PA is 3.84, according to Baseball Reference (league average = 3.78). Greg Maddux, for instance, the model of pitching efficiency, is at 3.30. Just for a little fun, I looked at Wolf’s ‘07 game log: in his 5 lowest P/PA starts, Wolf’s RA was 7.55. In his 5 highest P/PA outings, it was .89 (yes, there is a decimal point there). This is surely not worthy evidence — 10 starts in 2007 by Randy Wolf – and I’m definitely not trying to make any conclusion based any it … just pointing it out. Anyway, if you look at it in terms of P/out or inning, you get a different story. It could also just be a case of selective sampling — or something –where, because higher pitches per plate appearance generally mean more strikeouts, we’re getting all of his good performances. But, I guess, that is kind of my point. For Wolf to be successful, perhaps, he can’t just go right after guys; he has to nibble and work the corners. If Wolf wants to succeed, he, unlike a Greg Maddux, can’t just go right after guys.

With that, I thought we’d take a quick peak at the PITCHf/x data. In the 3rd and 4th inning, according to MLB’s pitch classification system, Wolf had a stretch where he threw 17 consecutive fastballs. All of the pitches during that stretch ranged between 88.3 and 90.8 mph. This has no significance; I just thought it was interesting. I hear people talk about mixing pitches a lot … you know, to confuse the hitter and upset his timing. I wonder if sometimes it’s correct to throw the same pitch that many times in a row, by game theory or whathaveyou. You are certainly confusing the hitter, as he’s probably saying, “well, he’s throw that pitch 5 times in a row to me, something off-speed is coming here.” At the same time, if you keep throwing it, they’ll eventually figure out that’s all you have … during that stretch, by the way, Wolf struck out Tulo, Helton, and Holliday (although Holliday’s k, a 10 pitch ab, eventually came on a changeup).

Here’s Wolf’s ‘pitch mix’ for the night (frequency of pitch with velocity in parenthesis).

Fastball: 82 (89.4)
Curve: 16 (66.6)
Change: 9 (79.8)
Slider: 4 (79.5)

He really went primarily with the fastball on this night (74% of the time. According to Kalk, in ‘07 he averaged 59% FB, 19% curves, 11% sliders, and 10% changeups).

***

Regarding the rest of the game, I thought the turning point came on Wolf’s sac bunt attempt, where he reached base in the 5th to load the bases. I was thinking to myself at that point, whether the decision to leave Wolf in here to bunt, rather than opt for a pinch hitter, was a good one. I figured if Wolf reached base enough it might be a decent one (but that going with a better hitter would probably be a wiser choice). As soon as I thought that, Wolf laid down a perfect bunt that was fielded by an off balance Jimenez. Wolf hustled down the line and beat the high throw. After that Brian Giles ripped a double off the wall in right, which was actually the biggest play in the game (according to wpa; +.178). Kouzmanoff and Edmonds both added doubles and the Padres were on their way to a nice 6-0 victory.