Mulder Recap
« Kline's Homesick | Main | Carpenter through '08? »How bad was Mark Mulder today?
On the good, or at least not so bad, side:
- There were only two really hard-hit balls (Kearns HR, Peña 2B) and both happened in the 5th when Mulder presumably was gassed.
- Mulder got two-strike counts on six of the twelve batter to reach base. Um, I think that's good.
On the bad side:
- The bottom three of the lineup were 0-7 against him; the rest were 11-17 with one walk.
- Mulder's fastball was around 88-89 most of the day and it looked like he was nibbling. It wasn't a slow gun either as Matt Belisle (who had a 5.26 ERA at Louisville in 2004) was generally 92-94. ESPN.com's scouting report says Mulder's supposed to throw 93.
- Or maybe instead of nibbling he was just missing his spots early in counts, because Mulder certainly missed his spots on a couple of pitches that the Reds turned into hits.
I'm not a scout, but this sounds more like Jeff Suppan on a bad day than a #1 starter.
Posted by Rob at April 13, 2005 10:51 PMObviously we're all a little worried about Mulder right now, but he's shown some positive signs at times too. Does anybody know enough about his 2nd half last year to say how closely his first 2 starts this year resemble that time period?
Posted by: John at April 14, 2005 12:42 AMThis is very similar to his outings last year. Definitely not as bad as some of them where he got knocked out in the 3rd inning. The thing is, for the first half of last year he was pitching complete games and giving up a run or two if that.
Posted by: Jasonh at April 14, 2005 11:30 AMYeah, I didn't get to follow the game yesterday, but why on earth would he be 'gassed' by the 5th inning? Is he not in good shape? Did he just throw a lot of early pitches?
Posted by: Ryan at April 14, 2005 11:47 AMHe threw a bunch of pitches in the 5th, although not as many as I had thought. I kinda wonder if Mulder would've gotten through the inning if Aurilia had been willing to take a pitch or two.
Posted by: Rob at April 14, 2005 06:23 PM