Remember these percentages:

32.4, 29.6, 8.5, 20.6

Also..remember these percentages:

53.2, 22.1, 19.4, 5.4

And DEFINITELY Remember these numbers:

91.2, 84.9, 82.9, 74.3

Oh…and these:

90.4, 82.9, 82.6, 72.8

But How, Kolby?

Kolby Allard went on the IL before he could even throw a pitch in the regular season, then out of nowhere, he gets a spot start yesterday and blows us all away by throwing 4.2 innings of 3H, 1BB, 8K, 0 run baseball. Was it fluky? FIP and xFIP says “not really”, xERA didn’t chime in, and Statcast says his Fastball is living in the Arctic.

What were his strikeout pitches? 5 on a fastball, 2 on the curve, 1 on the cutter.

Was his BABIP low? Nope. 333.

Had to be the Mustache

But, Ryan! He’s been so awful. Surely we can blame something on his good outing. The new mustache? That’s GOT to be it. Well, it probably helped, but we can’t say for sure. Was it his pitch mix? 23 fastballs, 21 cutters, 21 loopty loops, 6 change ups. Sure that likely had something to do with it. Likely. However…

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

When Kolby Allard pitched for Texas last year, he threw his fastball over half the time. For a kid with a below average fastball, that doesn’t seem like a great idea.

I have a theory. The Braves are sending pitchers to the FCL to get “fixed” and sending Quad-A type hitters to Gwinnett to also get fixed. It was mentioned above, but when Kolby Allard pitched for Texas last year, he threw his fastball over half the time. While it’s small sample territory, that pitch was only called for 32.4% yesterday. This seems deliberate. So…

Fix 1: Throw FB less and deliberately throw it in the upper part of the zone.

Yesterday, Kolby Allard had 2 pitches that came in with the same average velo (82.9), tunneled very similarly, and together they were thrown 38.1% of the time. Oh yeah…they also have different breaks in the last 1/3 of their journey.

Fix 2: Tunnel 2 pitches with same velocity but different breaks.

Lastly, Allard slowed his curveball velo to an average of 72.8, the lowest of his career since debuting with the Braves. Not only did he slow it down, but he started it in the middle of the strike zone and the end break was below the strike zone, a direct contrast to what occurred with the fastball.

Fix 3: Utilize the curve in the bottom of the zone.

Last night was so polarizingly different from what we’ve seen from Allard that it had to be deliberate.

  • Fastballs up
  • Curveballs down
  • FB 10 MPH faster than 2 midrange pitches
  • A Curveball 10MPH below the 2 mid range pitches.

This was all new, yet Allard was on the IL for soooo long. If IL means “Intentional Learning” then yes, the story checks out. Ok…who gets fixed next? My guess is Dylan Lee, but he’s getting fixed to become a starter. You heard it here first.

Pull up a stool and come join us at the bar. Remember, it’s a speak easy so knock 3 times on the door and give us your best Jimmie Rodgers yodeling impression.