Robbie Ray vs. the Phillies & a thought on Ray's velocity
There was a lot of good that happened in Ray's most recent start. Let's take a look.
Robbie Ray signed the big five-year, $115 million contract with the Seattle Mariners over the winter after winning the 2021 American League Cy Young Award. But he hasn’t looked like the same pitcher much early in 2022.
We saw more of that caliber pitcher in Tuesday’s start at T-Mobile Park versus the Philadelphia Phillies.
Ray hasn’t really had a bad outing this season, and he’s had four solid ones, and two so-so starts. But he’s supposed to be this club’s No. 1 starter. Tuesday was Ray’s best showing yet in a Mariners uniform.
He went just 5.2 innings thanks to a 31-pitch fifth inning that included the only two walks he’d surrender, plus two wild pitches that led to a cheap second run for the Phillies. On the night, he allowed just two hits — one a HR to Nick Castellanos — and gave up six ‘hard-hit’ balls. The Phillies lineup is very good, too, with just one easy out (Matt Vierling in for the lefty-hitting Odubel Herrera ).
In punching out a season-high 10 batters, Ray sat 92-95 with his fastball, averaging 93.4 mph, the second-best fastball velocity of the year (April 30 @ Miami, 93.7 mph) up from his last outing (92.9 mph), and he toughed 96 in this one, too. The velocity is one thing, but the two most critical aspects of Ray’s game are his fastball command and the effectiveness of his slider.
Ray was the best he’s been all year in both regards, walking just the two batters, and inducing 15 swings and misses on his slider on 30 total swings. On the night, Ray generated 21 whiffs on 56 swings, by far the best his slider has looked all year.
If this is a sign of the direction Ray is headed, it’s obviously good news for the Mariners who still have several hitters grinding out some struggles, though it was good to see Adam Frazier (.263 AVG, .336 OBP; .285/.365 last 15 games) post a three-hit night with a fourth AB ending in a hard lineout. Eugenio Suarez (.250/.379/.625 last 7 games) mustered two hits, and Luis Torrens has a pair of hits, too.
Seattle needs its rotation to carry as much of the load as possible. They need Ray to be better than he has been. The Mariners are now 4-3 in Ray’s seven starts. That’s not going to cut it. They need Ray to be their ace. The Ray we saw Tuesday night was close.
The Velocity
I’ve brought up Ray’s velocity to some of the smartest pitching people I know to get some theories. Because if he’s not hurt at all, there has to be some explanation for it. Among the possibilities, of course, is the mechanics. If something is off, it very well could explain a bit of a drop in velocity. Ray averaged 94.6 mph on his fastball last season. Entering play Tuesday he was at 93.2 mph for the season — it’s been climbing a bit the last three outings.
While I don’t buy the 1.4 mph dip in velocity is a big deal, the first three or four outings the gap was larger — more like 2-plus ticks.
One assistant GM and former big-league pitcher made one suggestion that I thought was interesting. We know the short spring training could be a factor, but this doesn’t seem to have impacted other pitchers to this extent.
But what if Robbie Ray’s offseason routine was altered for one reason or another? What if the doubt about when camp would open threw Ray’s plans off? What if he chose not to start and stop, and when camp did open he was caught in the middle? If for whatever reason he was not ramping up his activities in late January and mostly February, and started more from scratch than other arms because he simply wasn’t confident spring training was going to start anywhere near on time, that could explain why it’s taking him longer to build the arm strength he showed a year ago.
The colder weather could also be a factor, and it easily could be several things contributing. But I also wonder about the baseball itself.
It’s a deader ball, all the balls are being placed in a humidor this season before being used in games, and while there are not many arms out there showing 2-plus ticks of velocity loss like Ray (although, again, he’s closing that gap), there are pitchers that have lost something. There are a load of pitchers, starters and relievers alike, whose control has gone south. Some don’t have the strikeout numbers they did a year ago because their big secondary pitch is thrown with non-competitive results too often, including in the dirt, to the backstop, and hung for batters to handle.
Pitchers have indeed complained about the baseballs, as have hitters because fly balls are dying. The HR/FB rate in 2021 was 13.6%. It’s down to 10.1% in 2022. But since the ball is different, it could explain why Ray hasn’t yet duplicated his velocity of a year ago.
Thought it seems he’s working his way back in that regard, too.