The Yankees and Angels treated us to a true pitchers’ duel Wednesday night. Reid Detmers held the Yankees to a run on six hits and no walks with eight strikeouts in seven innings while Cam Schlittler went a step better with eight innings of one-run ball on two hits, no walks, and nine strikeouts.
While not the most high leverage spot of his start, there was a moment in the sixth inning that I’d like to highlight from Schlittler that shows him at his best as he whiffed Oswald Peraza for his seventh
strikeout.
We join Schlittler with Peraza leading off the sixth. To this point, the Angels managed just one base runner, a Vaughn Grissom single to lead off the second. The Yankees opened the scoring in the fourth, Amed Rosario smacking an RBI ground-rule double off Detmers, but the Angels lefty has yet to allow another base runner since.
Schlittler really started dialing in his fastball command to the edges over the previous two innings and saw the strikeouts tick up. Therefore it’s no surprise to see him start Peraza with a four-seamer.
Schlittler paints the outside edge of the zone with this 96 mph heater. The pitch is quite as elevated as he wants, but the slight cutting motion on this four-seamer causes Peraza to hit it off the end of the bat foul the other way. This ability to vary the shape of his four-seamer, which sometimes cuts but other times runs arm-side, is a subtle but effective wrinkle by Schlittler to keep hitters off balance.
We see this variation in shape the very next pitch as Schlittler attacks with another four-seamer.
See the way this 97 mph heater runs instead of cuts? Perhaps fooled a bit by this wrinkle in movement, Peraza whiffs through a pitch that lands pretty close to middle-middle as the pitch moves in toward the label rather than towards the barrel.
Peraza has shown zero indication that he is able to put Schlittler’s four-seamer in play, so an obvious choice after back-to-back fruitless swings against the pitch would be to climb the ladder above the zone.
Once again, Schlittler isn’t quite able to elevate this pitch to the spot he wants, which is why Peraza is able to foul it off to stay alive rather than whiff underneath it for the strikeout.
At this point, Schlittler seems pretty determined that this AB has to end with him blowing a four-seamer by Peraza. Given how late Peraza continues to be with his swings, the opportunity still exists if he can just get it above the zone instead of at the top of the zone.
Same pitch, same result as the last two four-seamers. These fastballs are high enough to keep the baseball above Peraza’s barrel but not quite high enough to prevent him from fouling it off.
It’s worth noting that that last swing from Peraza was the most on time to the fastball. Perhaps Schlittler and Ali Sánchez pick up on this, because they throw the perfect pitch for a hitter hunting the hight heater — a curveball that starts high before plummeting below the zone.
Schlittler throws an absolute hammer of a curve, this pitch falling four feet during its course home despite being thrown at 87 mph. Peraza looks absolutely foolish as he whiffs through this pitch. He’s not the only hitter to be made to look silly against Schlittler’s curveball. It has emerged as a true unicorn pitch given the speed he throws it at, but still maintains superior downward depth, which explains why hitters whiff with close to the most vertical miss distance of any curveball in baseball. Not only does the pitch boast unique physical characteristics, but Schlittler’s ability to tunnel it with the four-seamer unlocks the true potential of the pitch.
Jut look at the way the curveball and the previous four-seamer look like the same pitch for much of their journeys toward home before the curveball drops off the table after the hitter has started his swing.
Here’s the full sequence:
Schlittler’s gem came at a critical time, both on a personal level and from a team perspective. On a personal level, this start represented a nice bounce-back from a career-high five walks in his previous start. There seemed to be a concerted effort to attack the zone more from Schlittler. This command was on display as seen by the tight, precise grouping of the four fastballs to Peraza, which is also evidence that Schlittler did his homework on the scouting report which reveals Peraza’s weakness against up-and-away heaters. It also shows the confidence Schlittler has to throw four straight heaters in or around the zone, knowing his fastball is good enough to beat you no matter the count. Finally, Schlittler had to author a gem to stay neck-and-neck with Dylan Cease in the AL Cy Young race, the Blue Jays starter having pitched six scoreless innings earlier in the day.
From a team perspective, the Yankees at a minimum needed to win two of three from the worst team in baseball. They also needed to capitalize after the Rays lost to the Mets earlier on, each game gained in the standings worth their weight in gold now that we are into September. To have their ace pitcher firing on all cylinders in effectively a must-win game bodes well for their chances in the final month of the regular season.
