Well We're Not Really Fooling Anyone Now, Are We?

As you can see, Paps' face isn't scaring this young lady one bit.

The other day, during a 2-hour-plus Red Sox rain delay, NESN played an old Yankees vs. Red Sox game from 2006.  Most people know this game as the Doug Mirabelli game.  Before the game, the Sox acquired Mirabelli in a trade for pitcher Cla Meredith and catcher Josh Bard, who couldn't catch Tim Wakefield's knuckleball at all.  It must be embarrassing to be brought in to do one thing, to be so incredibly unable to do that one thing, and then to be traded for your predecessor.  To make matters worse, the Sox brought Bard back to try out in the Spring of 2009, but he was promptly cut.  

In this game, something interesting (and that which is quite unusual now) happened.  No, it wasn't Doug Mirabelli getting dressed on his way to the game, driven in by a police escort.  No, it wasn't Johnny Damon's first at-bat in a Yanks uniform.  The most interesting thing that happened on the field that day was how easily Jonathan Papelbon shut down the Yankees in the 9th.  At least that's how it feels to me when watching this game now. 

The game was tied 3-3 going into the bottom of the 8th inning.  Papelbon started to get warmed up for the 9th, and meanwhile his team put 4 quick runs on the board.  With Papelbon warm and the heart of the Yankees order coming up, Francona opted to stick with his newly-appointed rookie closer to get the last three outs.  First up was Alex Rodriguez, who struck out swinging.  Then, Hideki Matsui popped out meekly to third.  Finally, Jorge Posada followed A-Rod's lead and swung at strike three.  Amazingly, he only needed 13 pitches to complete the inning.  Here's his line from that day: 

1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 0.00 ERA, 13 pitches, 10 strikes

The most important thing to note about this outing is that it was Papelbon's very first appearance against the vaunted Yankees since his appointment to the closer position.  Sure, he pitched against the Yankees in two games in 2005, his first in the bigs.  But these games were lopsided wins by the Yanks (9-2 and 10-1), so Paps' innings were essentially meaningless at the end of those one-sided games.  In his first pressure situation against New York, in his first close-to-a-save situation against the rivals, he was brilliant.  Undoubtedly, he set the tone and let the Yanks know that he wasn't just some pushover closer, and that he had all of the necessary skills to dominate his opponents. 

Now, in 2009, Papelbon's status as one of the most dominating closers in baseball has to be more closely examined.  His saves aren't nearly as neat and tidy as they once were.  He walks batters with an alarming regularity now, and he has essentially entered the Mariano Rivera zone of being a "one-pitch pitcher".  What Paps needs to realize is that Rivera was (and still is, to some degree) able to get by on one pitch because his cutter is just so devastating to both lefties and righties.  Papelbon's straight 4-seam fastball doesn't fool anyone, and his mound presence (including his patented staredown) isn't scaring the opposition anymore.  In order to be successful and even downright dominant, he needs to mix his splitter into the mix in every count imaginable.  All too often, Paps comes out of the bullpen falling behind batters, and once he gets into the 1-0, 2-1, and 2-0 counts he relies solely on his straight fastballs, and hitters know he's not throwing anything else.  As an example, let's take a look at Papelbon's latest save against the Rays, which was (sadly) one of his better performances this year:

1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 0.00 ERA, 22 pitches, 11 strikes

What this line doesn't show is that, before punching out the last three batters of the inning, Papelbon had allowed a leadoff walk to Iwamura, made a throwing error on a pickoff play at first, and then allowed a single to Jason Bartlett.  All this before a single out.  He then proceeded to, miraculously, strike out Pena, Upton, and Crawford, all of them swinging.  The biggest offender here was Crawford, who struck out on three pitches above the letters.  Papelbon threw him nothing but fastballs, high fastballs at that, and was prepared to walk Crawford to bring up the righthanded-hitting Longoria.  I'm glad old Carl made a fool of himself up there, otherwise the Sox were one Longoria grand slam away from a 7-4 deficit.  Keep in mind that, as I said earlier, this was one of the more impressive performances that I can remember seeing out of Papelbon this season.   His worst outing was his second of the season, a four out save against the Angels:

1.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 6.75 ERA, 39 pitches, 29 strikes

Papelbon entered the game in the bottom of the 8th with two outs and was almost taken deep by Vlad Guerrero.  He then allowed a solo shot to Torii Hunter leading off the 9th, followed by a double, groundout, walk, strikeout (swinging), walk, and a deep, deep fly ball to right field that was caught on a line by Baldelli.  He really had to labor to get out of the inning, and, from what I can remember, he threw every batter a steady diet of fastballs.  Back in 2006 and 2007 (and to a lesser degree, 2008), Papelbon was at his absolute best when he relied on his 89-91 mph splitter as his primary out pitch.  Now, Paps tries to get by on straight heat accompanied with his "intimidation tactics".  Opposing batters are certainly catching up to that fastball and are making contact with regularity.

To illustrate this, let's take a look at Papelbon's rookie year (2006) against what's happened so far in 2009:

2006: 4-2, 0.92 ERA, 59 G, 35 SV, 6 BSv, 68.1 IP, 40 H, 8 R, 7 ER, 3 HR, 13 BB, 75 K, 0.776 WHIP, 5.3 H/9, 0.4 HR/9, 1.7 BB/9, 9.9 K/9, 5.77 K/BB, .226 BAbip

2009: 0-0, 1.29 ERA, 13 G, 8 SV, 0 BSv, 14 IP, 12 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 HR, 8 BB, 18 K, 1.429 WHIP, 7.7 H/9, 0.6 HR/9, 5.1 BB/9, 11.6 K/9, 2.25 K/BB, .324 BAbip

You'll see that the primary differences between 2006 and 2009 are the following:

1. He's giving up more hits.
2. He's walking many more batters (over three times as many on average).
3. He's striking out more batters (and throwing more pitches).
4. His WHIP this year is almost twice as it was when he was a rookie.
5. His 2009 strikeout to walk ratio is not what you'd want to see in a top-flight closer.
6. His BAbip is almost 100 points higher this year (meaning that when batters are making contact, the balls are landing for hits with much more frequency).

Of course, the stats we have for 2009 are a very small sample size, and we'll have to see how Paps does in the rest of the year.  One of my concerns is that Papelbon might not make it through the entire year if he has to expend so much energy in cleaning up his own messy innings (he's on a very strict throwing program and, let's not forget, almost blew out his shoulder at the end of 2006).  He appeared in a career-high 67 games last year, and then pitched in 7 pressure-packed playoff games.  In all, Papelbon pitched a total of 79.1 innings, and we'll have to see if that has any effect on what he's able to do this year.  

Sure, he'll probably be an All-Star again this year, just as he was when he also finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting in 2006.  But Papelbon is going to have to start working in his splitter more often, especially in hitter's counts when the opposition is expecting him to come with a fastball over the plate.  And as is the case with any pitcher, he would also benefit from commanding his fastball better than he has so far.  Papelbon will really hurt himself if he continues to fall behind batters, throw fastballs, and walk too many men.  He's certainly able to return to form and master the opposition like he did in 2006.  But until he starts throwing more splitters and regains total command over his fastball, he'll struggle to get by on straight heat, staredowns, and excessive celebration.