It was more than the FB command which was off - counted 25 of 43 last night (with 1/2 ball or more) not in the zone (58%) vs (19 of 38) 50% or so the first game. Yet, if you count the 1-ball off zone misses (13 last night vs 8 previously on FB), the counts go to 33 of 43 and 27 of 38. Yet, he had 7ks vs 1bb in first night and 5bb and 4ks last night - shouldn't be that skewed. Below are the pitch charts from his first game and last night game. What is the difference really to justify big difference?
1) If the ump is squeezing the zone, then his near misses are not as effective as hitters can lay off (15% o-zone swing last night for all pitches vs 43% the first game). They were not even swinging in the zone 69% vs 58% last night - hoping ump called a ball.
2) He threw more curves and changes first game than last night (11 vs 6) as there were 5 swings first game and only 1 last night. For this, it looks like his Curve wasn't dropping in the zone as everything was outside on these pitches.
3) His slider was more in the zone as it had to be as there were few being called or chased just outside. I only saw 7 of his sliders last night totally miss out of 12 balls that I would have called balls (out of 33 total slider pitches - so I had about 21 strikes vs ump 17). There were 9 swings (8 inside and one outside the zone) and 9 called strikes so 17 supposedly in strike zone per ump. But I count 18 90% of ball in zone with another 3 I would have called as 25-50% of ball was in zone and another 2-3 that look to be just touching the line or about that 1 or 2 could/should have been called. But,they only swung at 1 slider (6% chase) outside the umps zone vs 37% chase the first game. If ump ain't calling a good zone, why even try....
And, if there were only 6 swings at supposed balls with 4 contacts out of 6 (all FB), of course their Z-contact and O-contact look high as why swing at good (Bibee) pitches that you can't hit if the ump isn't calling anything???
