His stuff was sharper and crisper than it had been in the other starts. The firmness of his pitches. He was throwing 4 to 5 (mph) harder than we’d seen him before. This was the best we had seen him this year.

– Troy Glaus on Ian Snell

It feels good to have my velocity back and not getting scared away from hitters. I challenged all of them, no matter who it was.

– Ian Snell

In a bit of badly timed regression to the mean, the “good” Ian Snell finally showed up against the Cardinals, setting them down in a disheartening loss Tuesday night. In his fifth start this season against St. Louis (the most of any pitcher), Snell returned to his old form, striking out almost a third of the batters he faced (eight of 26) for a dazzling 73 FIGS.

How did he do it? The one problem Snell had this season has been walks (he’s got a very good HR/G rate of 0.86), with a 4.5 BB/G rate. He gave only one free pass (to Skip Schumaker), aided by 12% swinging strikes (compared to only 7% for Braden Looper, who pitched a good game in his own right with a 59 FIGS).

So is Glaus’s claim that Snell was "throwing 4 to 5 (mph) harder" true? Let’s look at his season numbers from Fangraphs, then the Gameday data from last night’s affair:

So Glaus may have been exaggerating a bit, but the point is made: Snell was pumping an extra two MPH on his hard stuff Tuesday night. As for Snell’s comment about challenging everyone, he certainly appeared to have done that. But he also seemed that he challenged some hitters more than others, namely Pujols and Glaus.

Snell was bringing it against the Cardinal lineup, and he brought a little bit more when he faced down Pujols (including one strikeout) and Glaus (two strikeouts), at least on his fastballs. His sliders to the Cardinal sluggers, it would appear, had a little more taken off.

As dispiriting as the loss was, it’s important to keep it in perspective: Yes, it was the Pirates, but it was their best pitcher (who happens to be one of the best pitchers in the league when healthy). The Cardinals had been ahead of the curve in Snell’s previous outings against them this year (9.00 ERA, 4.74 BB/9), so it shouldn’t be too worrisome that he eventually had a good game. Now if the Cardinal bats can’t do anything with tonight’s starter Jason Davis (though Davis’s 4.55 lifetime FIP is almost the same as Snell’s of 4.50), it may be time to be concerned.

This entry was posted by Pip on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 1:50 pm and is filed under quotebook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.