Washington Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg made his second start of the season today and went six innings allowing no runs on two hits while striking out nine and walking three against the New York Mets. It took him a full inning to get used to the strike zone but once he did he was nearly unhittable.
Strasburg had to leave after six innings thanks to a pitch count of 108. He threw 26 pitches in the first innings thanks to an odd strike zone from homeplate umpire Larry Vanover‘s. Take a look:
As you can see there were three surefire strikes that were called balls, all down in the lower right quadrant of the zone, and two more in the same quadrant that could have gone either way. Vanover did give Strasburg a gift on a ball nearly one and a half feet off the plate to his left. But Strasburg didn’t let the missed call stop him from striking out two batters in that first inning.
The second inning was much better with no missed calls but Stasburg threw 19 pitches. The third inning was his quickest with only 12 pitches thrown and he got three whiffs. Vanover had another good inning and even gave Strasburg a borderline pitch towards his left.
The fourth inning was another efficient one with only 13 pitches and while Vanover did not give Strasburg the call on a pitch on the black in the lower right-hand quadrant he did give him two more strikes on pitches off the plate to his left. Strasburg struck out two in a perfect inning.
The fifth inning was an interesting one with Strasburg striking out two and only throwing 14 pitches but Vanover still would not give him the pitch in the lower right-hand quadrant of the zone but did give him two outside of the zone but this time to the his right. Take a look:
At this point all we know is that Vanover will not give Strasburg the surefire strike call in the lower right-hand quadrant of the zone but he will give him the pitch outside the zone if it’s a little higher. That strike call you see that is furthest to the right was the one that froze Ruben Tejada to end the inning.
Strasburg entered the 6th inning with 84 pitches under his belt so he likely knew this was his last inning. He takes advantage of going outside the zone and gets two more calls to Vanover’s right but can’t get the borderline call in the same right-hand lower quadrant.
Strasburg had an unusual zone to work with and it may have led to his high pitch count in the first inning. As the game went on he threw less pitches in the lower right-hand quadrant but it appears that he started noticing Vanover’s tendency to call the strike off the plate to the right and left and decided to take advantage of it. Take a look at his full game strike zone plot:
Strasburg was not only impressive with his stuff but also with his knowledge of the strike zone that was given by the umpire Larry Vanover today.
-Jonathan C. Mitchell can be found writing about the Tampa Bay Rays at DRaysBay and the Florida Marlins at ESPN’s SweetSpot site Marlins Daily. You can follow him on twitter at @FigureFilbert. Be sure to follow MLBdirt at @MLBdirt
