The Hook

Week 6 MOTW: Braden Looper vs. Chris Young

When Dave Duncan, Tony LaRussa, and the Cardinals decided to move career reliever Braden Looper to the bullpen, many (including myself) baseball people questioned their sanity. Looper has never thrown more than 86 innings in a big league season. He's always been a pitcher who relies predominantly on two pitches, which is fine for most relievers, but not necessarily what you're looking for out of a starter. Furthermore, there were a lot of questions as to how he would get by when not going all out on every pitch, a luxury that relievers (throwing 15-20 pitches per outing) have over starters (who need to save up a little more gas in the tank). Six weeks later, it's Duncan and LaRussa who are laughing, as Looper started the season on a major tear. Will it continue? If Saturday's matchup is any indication, it just might.

Chris Young emerged as one of the top starters in baseball last season after an offseason deal had sent him to San Diego. However, while so many people figured that the move to Petco would help him drastically, it wasn't his pitching at home that turned things around so much as his performance on the road. This season, he's started strong at Petco Park, and had yet to yield a run at home prior to Saturday's game.

Braden Looper

Arsenal
88-93 Four Seam Fastball
82-84 Split Fingered Fastball
81-83 Slider

We'll start by saying that Looper looks none the worse for wear so far this season. Though he'd thrown 44 innings in his first seven starts, Looper was raring and ready to go Saturday night. One thing that separated him from many ace relievers (as he was for a few years with the Marlins and Mets) throughout much of his career was that he's never been a huge strikeout pitcher. This isn't because he doesn't throw hard (he used to consistently hit the mid-nineties), but simply because he's learned to effectively pitch to contact over the years. His walk rates out of the bullpen have never been anything to write home about, but they're always solid enough so that you know he's not having trouble finding the plate.

The velocity of Looper's fastball fluctuated quite a bit, touching 93 on a few occasions while also hovering as low as 87 on the gun quite a few times. He looked most comfortable throwing it at 89-90, having spot on command when he did so. Looper likes to work low in the zone in getting ahead of hitters, though he did have a few occasions where he elevated his fastball with success later in the count.

Looper uses the pitching rubber well, shifting himself quite a bit from side to side to come at a hitter from slightly different angles, though his arm angle stayed the same. When lined up on the left, his fastball always tended to bear in on righties and get right in their kitchen, jamming them and inducing weak contact. He was extremely effective at keeping the right-handers in the San Diego lineup from extending at all.

We didn't see the breaking ball much from Looper Saturday, though he did throw it a couple of times for strikes. More than anything, he uses it to keep hitters honest. They were having a lot of trouble doing much of anything with his fastball.

What Looper did go to almost exclusively in the late innings was his splitter, which is a devastating out pitch when it's on. While most splitters tend to look like a fastball before slowing down and diving near the plate, Looper's splitter was doing the exact opposite. It started out looking almost like a slow hanging breaking ball before the bottom dropped out and it almost seemed to pick up steam with a little late life. He used it to finish five of the seven batters he struck out, while he also used it effectively to force the Padre hitters to drive it into the ground.

Looper was nearly untouchable Saturday, as the Pads failed to get multiple baserunners in an inning against him. He fanned seven against just one walk, while allowing only three hits (two of them singles) in his seven shutout innings. Though I'm still skeptical about how he's going to hold up in the second half, he's certainly worth a spot as a third tier starter in any fantasy lineup right now.

Line: 7 IP, 3 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 0 ER, 7 K

Chris Young

Arsenal
86-93 Four Seam Fastball
78-81 Slider
81-84 Changeup

Though Young hadn't allowed a run at home all season, the Cardinals were able to wear him down Saturday (literally). Both Albert Pujols and David Eckstein worked nine pitch at bats against him early on, and while neither did any major damage in those at bats (Pujols reached on an error, Eckstein grounded out to third), they set the tone for the game. The entire Cardinal lineup took a patient approach against Young, forcing him to find the plate or pay the price. Young would end up walking four against just one strikeout, and he would also throw 104 pitches in just over five innings of work. In spite of all of the pitches and the inability to keep runners off base, Young still found a way to be fairly effective with the exception of the third and sixth innings.

While, with Looper, you could get the hunch that the variance in his fastball was a little intentional, it was a lot more clear with Young. This isn't to say that his arm speed changed much, or that he was changing his arm angle at all. It was just so clear that he's more used to starting than Looper and has those times when he has to put a little extra on his pitches down.

Though he's not imposing in the way that a Randy Johnson (another tall pitcher) can be, Young does use his height well. His fastball is heavy, and can almost work as a sinker when he's throwing it down in the zone simply because of the downward trajectory he has to throw with to get it. Young uses a straight overhand delivery, which means that he's throwing at a downward angle no matter where he's trying to locate it. As for his location, it looked to be a little off Saturday, though you could clearly see that he loves to throw hitters off by changing the eye level.

Young's slider isn't nearly in the class of teammate Jake Peavy's, but it does dive hard and to the pitcher's left. It's an effective pitch, but it's still susceptible to right-handed hitters provided they're ready to take the ball the other way. Several Cardinals, including pitcher Braden Looper, were able to take advantage of this throughout the game. His change was a bit better, showing solid movement down and in towards right-handers. Neither was a pitch he was showing a ton of command over, though, which showed as he threw just 62 strikes in his 104 pitches and got hammered a few times when he left the ball up.

Though only one of the five runs he allowed was earned, that certainly doesn't mean Young wasn't responsible for them. The Cardinals scored all five of their runs in the third inning, a rally which started when Braden Looper dumped an outside fastball into the right field corner. Adam Kennedy followed with a single before Young did what no pitcher in their right mind should do.... lost Chris Duncan in front of Albert Pujols. What followed initially looked like a grand slam.

Alas, Petco would keep the ball in the yard (and maybe one or two other parks in the majors would have, but Terrmel Sledge dropped what should have been a fairly routine catch on the warning track. Edmonds followed with a sac fly to center, and after Young walked Scott Rolen, So Taguchi picked on Sledge some more by lining a double that Sledge just missed with a diving attempt to clear the bases.

Though these were the only runs the Cardinals would score, Young got into more trouble before getting pulled with one out in the sixth. After a one out single, Young walked David Eckstein in front of Braden Looper, finally complicating things even further when he hit Looper on a sacrifice bunt attempt on his final pitch to load the bases. Justin Hampson escaped the jam, leaving Young's ERA respectable for the evening, if nothing else.

Young had an off night, though he may have been exposed a bit. Patience may be the way to beat him, though we'll chalk some of the command issues up to his poor start. He's a borderline number two fantasy starter, and should remain that way... particularly with Petco behind him.

Line: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 4 BB, 5 R, 1 ER, 1 K

---