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Appreciating Chasen Shreve and his nasty splitter

July 7, 2015 by Katie Sharp 222 Comments

When the Yankees acquired Chasen Shreve this offseason, he was widely considered just another young, controllable power arm to provide depth possibly in the big leagues or at Triple-A. He wasn’t on either the Braves or the Yankees top-10 prospect lists this winter, and even after he won a spot in the bullpen out of spring training, it was expected he’d be just a mop-up guy behind the other more established relievers on the team.

Few people could have predicted Shreve’s breakout campaign and the elite numbers he’s put up in the first three months: 1.87 ERA, 0.92 WHIP and .165 batting average allowed in 33 2/3 innings.

Perhaps the most impressive part of his season is the work Shreve has done in the game’s most important and pressure-filled moments. He has faced 36 batters with runners in scoring position and allowed a total of four singles in those plate appearances. Of the 28 batters he’s matched up with in high-leverage situations, just three have gotten hits, each of them singles. He has inherited 17 runners when the score has been within three runs, and let just two of those guys score. There’s not much more you could ask for in a guy that has gradually risen in the bullpen pecking order and taken on the critical “fireman” role recently.

How could such an unheralded prospect with only a dozen major-league innings under his belt entering this season become such a valuable and trusted member of the Yankees bullpen?

The key has been the development of a nasty split-fingered fastball to complement his four-seamer and slider. It has allowed him shut down batters from both sides of the plate — righties have a .441 OPS against him — and made him into a go-to reliever regardless of the situation.

One of the reasons his splitter has been such a dominant pitch is its extreme downward movement. The splitter disappears down out of the zone as it approaches the plate, generating a ton of stupid-looking whiffs and even more worm-burning grounders. Among the 30 guys who have thrown at least 100 splitters this year, only four have gotten more drop on those pitches than Shreve.

Remember this strikeout to escape a bases-loaded jam against the Angels last month? Erick Aybar is still having nightmares…

Because of that diving action, he’s able to consistently locate his splitter below the knees, where batters have virtually no chance of getting any good wood on the pitch. He’s thrown a ridiculous 90 percent (135 of 152) of his splitters in the lower third of the zone or below this season. Here’s what that looks like, in heatmap-form:

Another reason for the success he’s had this season is the 9-mph separation he’s now getting between his splitter and four-seam fastball, after ramping up the velocity on his heater last season when he debuted with the Braves. The improvement in his fastball has made his splitter so much more effective, because the two pitches are basically indistinguishable at their release points, but couldn’t look more different to the batter when they cross the plate.

Let the numbers speak for themselves:

To say the pitch is unhittable would hardly be an understatement. He has thrown 152 split-fingered fastballs and just one of those pitches resulted in a hit: on April 10, Hanley Ramirez lined a hanging first-pitch splitter to left field for a single. That’s it. Among pitchers that have thrown 100-or-more splitters this season. none have allowed a lower batting average (.029) or slugging percentage (.029) than Mr. Shreve.

Not only is the pitch unhittable, but it’s also nearly untouchable. Batters have come up empty on more than half their swings against the pitch, and his whiff percentage of 53 percent is the highest among anybody that’s thrown at least 10 splitters this year.

When they do manage to put it into play, it’s gone nowhere: one line drive, one fly ball, three infield pop-ups, and 12 grounders. He has the highest pop-up rate, lowest line drive rate, second-lowest fly ball rate and fourth-highest ground ball rate on split-fingered fastballs in the majors this season (min. 100 pitches).

Is that good? Um … yes.

When Andrew Miller returns from the disabled list, the Yankees will have arguably the deepest bullpen in the league, capable of shutting down any lineup in baseball. And the one of the most important pieces of the puzzle — the glue that holds the ‘pen together, the bridge to Betances/Miller — just might be Mr. Chasen Shreve.

From low-leverage reliever to critical bullpen arm in just a few months’ time, he is now fully enshrined in Girardi’s Circle of Trust™. It’s hard to imagine the Yankees would be in first place on July 7 without the lanky southpaw from Las Vegas and his filthy split-fingered fastball.

How the Yankees can beat Chris Archer

July 3, 2015 by Katie Sharp 50 Comments

The offensive numbers for the Yankees over the past week are just plain ugly: seven games, 18 runs and a .214/.286/.328 slashline. And half of those runs came in one game! The only team in the majors that can probably be jealous of the Yankees’ bats right now is the Mets.

With a matchup against the Rays’ ace Chris Archer looming tonight, conventional wisdom would suggest the Yankees have little-to-no chance of ending their offensive slump.

Archer is having a fantastic breakout campaign, ranking among the league leaders in nearly every pitching statistic, from ERA (third) to FIP (second) to strikeouts (second) to WHIP (first). He’s also dominated the Yankees during his four major-league seasons, going 5-0 with a 2.01 ERA in seven starts, and hasn’t allowed more than three runs in any of those games. The list of players to start their career with a streak of at least seven unbeaten starts and three-or-fewer runs allowed against the Yankees is a very short one: Chris Archer. Yup, that’s it.

Fortunately, this Yankees team has defied logic and common sense all season. This bizarro version of the Bronx Bombers has already crushed such aces as David Price, Jacob deGrom, Felix Hernandez and Max Scherzer — while, of course, getting dominated by the likes of Tom Koehler and Joe Kelly. (Yes, Dallas Keuchel recently made the Yankees look silly, but you can’t win ’em all, right?)

Although Archer is arguably among the top-3 pitchers in the AL right now, he has struggled at times this season. He’s allowed at least four runs in four games, including his most recent outing when the Red Sox scored five times and hit three home runs against him on June 28.

Unfortunately, the Yankees biggest advantage against Archer might have been getting Jacoby Ellsbury back in the lineup, who has crushed Archer in their previous matchups. But he’s still working to get his legs back into baseball shape, so instead the Yankees will turn to the scorching-hot Brett Gardner — who has also had a ton of success against Archer in the past — to lead the hit parade against the Rays’ ace on Friday night.

No player in baseball has dominated Archer like Ellsbury. He owns the highest batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage against Archer by anyone that has faced him at least 10 times. Gardner’s 1.172 OPS is fourth among that group of batters, and he is the only player that has four extra-base hits against Archer.

The rest of the Yankees, however, have not fared as well, going a combined 9-for-63 (.143) against the Rays’ right-hander.

The Yankees have already seen Archer once this season: on May 12 he held them to two runs on seven hits over seven innings. Nearly all that damage came in a 32-pitch first inning during which the Yankees scored two runs on four hits and a walk. Archer threw just 73 pitches over the next six frames and retired 16 of the final 19 batters.

Getting to Archer early appears to be the best game plan in trying to beat him. Nearly half of the runs he has allowed this season (14 of 33) have come in the first two innings, during which his ERA “jumps” to 3.18; after the second inning, he has a 1.92 ERA.

The Yankees also need to lay off his nasty slider, which he often throws with two strikes and buries below the knees. Opponents have hit just .163 against the pitch this season, and 93 of his 133 strikeouts have been with the breaking ball.

The Yankees were far too aggressive against the pitch in their matchup earlier this season, swinging at 24 of the 36 sliders he threw, most of which were in the dirt or unhittable (see the red dots in the image below). It was a boom-or-bust strategy for the Yankees in that game. They they whiffed on 13 (!) of those 24 swings, but got five hits on the seven sliders they were able to put into play.

It would be smart to try and jump on his heater, which he starts an at-bat with nearly 70 percent of the time. Opponents have hit .304 when putting a first-pitch fastball in play this season against Archer. If he does decide to go with a breaking ball or something off the plate initially, the Yankees need to be disciplined and lay off the pitch. Getting ahead early might be the second-best strategy against him. Archer has allowed a .754 OPS after a 1-0 count, which is only slightly better than the MLB average in those situations.

While there’s no guarantee you’ll have success, it’s better than the alternative — if you fall behind 0-1 against Archer, you’re gonna be in trouble. His OPS allowed after an 0-1 count this season is a ridiculous .362, the second-best mark among starters.

Archer has clearly established himself as one of the elite pitchers in the game and is a leading Cy Young contender, but that shouldn’t worry the Yankees tonight. They’ve already shown that they can beat the best arms in baseball, and have been a much better offensive team at home than on the road this season.

If they can execute a game plan similar to the one outlined above and take advantage of the friendly confines of Yankee Stadium, there’s a good chance we’ll see the return of the real Bronx Bombers and be able to celebrate a much-needed win over a division rival.

Unlocking the mystery of Michael Pineda

June 26, 2015 by Katie Sharp 116 Comments

Along with the shiny ERA (1.89) and ridiculous strikeout-to-walk ratio (8.4), perhaps the most impressive part of Michael Pineda’s 2014 campaign was his consistency from start-to-start.

Game Score is a metric devised by Bill James that provides a quick-and-dirty evaluation of a pitcher’s start. Every pitcher begins a game with 50 points and then gets points added/subtracted based on innings pitched, strikeouts, walks, hits and runs allowed. 50 is average, anything above 90 is awesome, and anything below 10 is horrible.

Last year, Pineda posted an above-average Game Score in 11 of his 13 starts — the exceptions were the pine tar game in April and his September 11 start against the Rays when he allowed 10 hits and four runs in 7 1/3 innings (Game Score of 44).

Pineda’s 2015 season couldn’t be any more different. While he’s shown flashes of brilliance — the 16-strikeout gem against the Orioles, the one-hit masterpiece against the Marlins — he’s also had his share of clunkers. Six of his 14 starts have produced a Game Score under 50, including a career-worst Game Score of 5 in his most recent start on June 22. He’s basically been either a stud or a dud this season, and can go from elite to enigma in the blink of an eye.

Strap in, because this roller coaster ride is not for those with weak stomachs:

The peaks and valley have become even more extreme in his last seven starts, which have resulted in the following game scores, starting with his May 15 outing against the Royals: 29, 37, 65, 57, 23, 75, 5. Yikes.

How can we explain this bizarre Jekyll-and-Hyde sequence from a pitcher that last year resembled a metronome (when healthy)?

A scout recently told John Harper of the New York Daily News that one reason for the huge disparity in Pineda’s performance lies in the inconsistent execution of his signature slider:

“His height creates an angle on the slider that hitters don’t usually see and when it has a sharp break they don’t hit it. But when he doesn’t have the tight spin and the sharp break, it hangs in the strike zone and it’s getting hit.”

This is what Prince Fielder can do with a hanging slider from Pineda:

But Lorenzo Cain had no chance on this nasty slider from Pineda:

Pineda’s last two starts have been a microcosm of his season. On June 17 against the Marlins he was at his absolute best, taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning. Five days later against the Phillies, he pitched the worst game of his career.

Just as the scout noted, his slider was much flatter against the Phillies compared to his previous start, averaging nearly an inch less vertical movement and three-quarters of an inch less horizontal movement. Against the Marlins, his slider netted Pineda nine outs — including six strikeouts — with no hits allowed; the Phillies put six of his sliders in play and got three hits off the pitch.

But it wasn’t just a sloppy slider that doomed Pineda against the Phillies. Similar to his other disaster starts this season, he struggled to hit his spots with his cutter and batters pounded the poorly located pitches.

As you can see in the images below, he did a good job of avoiding the middle of the zone vs. the Marlins (on the top). But he threw far too many cutters (dark red dots) over the heart of the plate vs. the Phillies (on the bottom), who got seven hits and made just four outs against the pitch.

When Pineda is at his best, he’s got a sharp slider and devastating cutter that makes him nearly unhittable. But at his worst, he’s forced to navigate lineups with flat sliders and batting-practice cut fastballs — a pitching arsenal that becomes crushable even against the worst offensive team in the majors. Although this inability to execute his pitches probably doesn’t completely explain Pineda’s inconsistency this season, it’s something that can’t be ignored.

Once tabbed as the future ace of the Yankees pitching staff, Pineda is now a mystery with the potential to either dominate or detonate when he steps on the mound. The question remains: can he find the consistent approach necessary to make him a true top-of-the-rotation starter?

Is Brian McCann still an elite pitch framer?

June 17, 2015 by Katie Sharp 234 Comments

Last year when Brian McCann suffered through perhaps his worst offensive campaign as a major-leaguer with a career-low OPS of .692, the one thing that kept his season from being a complete disaster was his strong defense behind the plate. He ranked sixth in caught stealing percentage, and according to the various catcher framing metrics, he was among the elite in stealing strikes.

It’s been a different story this year for McCann. While he’s back to bashing baseballs and putting up his customary above-average offensive numbers, his glovework has been a mixed bag. Yes, he’s still throwing out runners at a high rate, but his pitch framing skills have declined sharply.

There are two catcher framing models — one from the Baseball Prospectus folks and one at StatCorner.com — and both agree that McCann has surprisingly been a poor receiver behind the plate this year.

For the first time in his career (or at least since data became available in 2008), his framing stats are below average and he’s actually losing strikes — i.e. getting fewer called strikes than predicted by the various framing models.

Last season McCann was really good at both stealing strikes outside the zone and getting correct strike calls on pitches that are taken within the zone. Baseball Prospectus credited him with 69 extra strikes gained from his ability to frame pitches outside the zone (16th in MLB); StatCorner calculated that only 10 percent of the pitches he caught within the defined strike zone were called balls, the fifth-best rate among qualified catchers last year.

This season, each of those numbers are in the red and much worse than last year. BP has him with -2 framing runs — meaning he has cost the team two runs based on his poor receiving work — while StatCorner is slightly more optimistic at -0.7 runs. He’s gotten 13 fewer strikes than expected while his rate of called balls within the zone has jumped to 13 percent. Although the raw number of “lost” strikes seems low (13), all it takes is one extra pitch for a batter to deliver a game-changing hit and give away a potential win. That’s baseball, folks.

Digging into the numbers using Baseball Savant’s pitch f/x tool, we can try to figure out where exactly McCann has struggled in stealing strikes outside the zone this year compared to last year. As you can see in the called strike pitch heat maps below, it appears that he’s been less effective in getting calls on pitches to his non-glove side — on the outside corner to right-handed batters and inside to lefties (focus more on the changes in the shapes of the blobs, not the colors):

There are a couple potential theories to explain McCann’s troubles with framing pitches this year. As the catcher told FanGraphs’ writer Eno Sarris earlier this month, framing is an athletic skill. “You have to have soft hands, and when the ball hits your glove, your wrist can’t move,” explained McCann. When a catcher ages — McCann turned 31 years old this winter — he loses the athleticism and physical skills, along with the critical flexibility, needed to properly execute the framing techniques.

It’s also possible that this year’s pitching staff has thrown him fewer “frameable” pitches. While most analysts agree that the catcher plays a significant part in getting borderline strike calls, framing is a two-way street. The pitcher also has to be able to paint edges with pitches that are just enough off the plate so the batter doesn’t swing but close enough to the zone that the catcher can make it look like a strike.

Regardless of the reasons why McCann is struggling with his pitch framing this year, there is little doubt based on the metrics that his skills have eroded. While the actual impact of these lost strikes on the outcome of a game might seem subtle, we know that one pitch can be the difference between a win and a loss, and one win can be the difference between making the playoffs and playing golf in October.

A closer look at Nathan Eovaldi’s splitter

June 10, 2015 by Katie Sharp 151 Comments

Nathan Eovaldi’s most recent start last Friday night against the Angels was a game most Yankee fans would like to forget — that’s what happens when you nearly blow a seven-run lead in the ninth inning — but it’s one that could potentially be an important milestone in the development of the 25-year-old right-hander.

As Mike mentioned in his recap, the key takeaway from Eovaldi’s outing was his surprisingly heavy splitter usage. According to the (revised) numbers from Brooksbaseball.net, 18 of his 93 pitches were splitters, the most he’s ever thrown in a game and his highest percentage (19.4) as well.

Eovaldi had never before thrown more than 14 splitters in a game, so the question is whether this is a one-game blip or a new trend. Prior to his start on June 5, he told MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch that he had “been working on” the splitter and that he’s “built up a lot more confidence in it, the last few outings.”

That last part of the quote is key — regardless of how nasty the pitch might be in terms of velocity or pure stuff, before a pitcher can really commit to using it, he has to be able to throw the offering with conviction. It’s a two-step process, really, where the mind and the arm have to be in sync before you are able execute the pitch successfully on a consistent basis.

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During the first two months of the season, Eovaldi showed he can get the results he wants with the splitter, throwing it primarily when he’s ahead in the count. It has been a really strong pitch for him, generating whiffs, grounders and outs at a high rate.

Eovaldi has thrown 90 splitters this season and batters have whiffed on nearly four out of every 10 swings against the pitch. When they do manage to make contact, it’s usually been either a foul ball (13), grounder (13) or harmless pop-up (1). Eovaldi has yielded just three singles off his splitter, which has also netted him 25 outs, including 12 strikeouts.

As you can see in the chart below, it has been arguably his most effective out-pitch this season, albeit in a very limited sample size.

The key to the success he’s had with the pitch is two-fold. First, his location — he’s kept the splitter down and away to both righties and lefties — making it difficult for hitters to get solid wood on the ball.

Second, his ability to get swings on the pitch, even though nearly three-quarters of his splitters have landed out of the strike zone. Batters have chased 40 percent of his out-of-zone splitters, indicating that the pitch has a ton of deception and good movement. More often than not, when a batter swings at a pitch off the plate, he’s going to either come up empty or make weak contact. Curtis Granderson took the swing-and-miss route on this filthy 2-2 splitter in late April:

So we’ve seen that Eovaldi’s splitter definitely has the “stuff” to get batters out and be an effective weapon for him in favorable counts. But, before this week, the missing ingredient was the confidence to be able to execute the pitch in a put-away count on a consistent basis.

While 43 of his 90 splitters have been thrown in two-strike counts, that still represents only 15 percent of his two-strike pitches this season. Instead, he’s been heavily relying on his four-seamer (42 percent) and slider (38 percent) when getting to two strikes. That makes sense for Eovaldi — since he is very comfortable throwing those pitches — but it really hurts him when he’s trying to finish off batters, because it makes him way too predictable in those situations.

If its true that he now has more trust in his splitter, he needs to also start throwing it more often — perhaps increasing its two-strike usage to 20 or 25 percent — and relying less on his fastball, which has been crushed this season. Batters have hit .375 and slugged .531 off his four-seamer, and the numbers are just as ugly in two-strike counts (.325/.550).

Armed with a blazing fastball and plus breaking ball, Eovaldi has often been labeled as a high-upside pitcher with limitless potential — if he could harness his raw talent and (among other things) add a third out-pitch.

That’s why the recent development of this much-needed confidence in his splitter is so important, and could be the difference-maker in whether remains a back-end starter or can grow into a top-of-the rotation guy.

Inside the matchup: Tanaka vs. Nelson Cruz

June 3, 2015 by Katie Sharp 145 Comments

Welcome back to the rotation, Masahiro Tanaka. Congratulations, your prize is a one-on-one battle with the best power hitter in the American League — Mr. Nelson Cruz of the Seattle Mariners.

The 34-year-old Cruz leads the AL in both homers and slugging percentage, and is showing no mercy when he makes contact. According to data at Baseball Savant, Cruz has the longest homer in the majors this season — a 483-foot moonshot off Wandy Rodriguez on April 29 — and the second-hardest hit ball of any player — a walk-off single against the Rangers on April 19 that left his bat at an exit velocity of 119 mph.

Cruz is one of the most dangerous hitters in the league right now, a threat to crush the ball over the fence or send a screaming line drive to the outfield corner on any pitch, and can change the outcome of a game with one swing of the bat.

The good news for Tanaka is that this won’t be his first time pitching against the Mariners slugger. He faced the Orioles twice last season, saw Cruz a combined six times and retired him in all six plate appearances — three strikeouts, two fly outs and one ground out.

Let’s go inside the matchup to see how Tanaka was able to neutralize Cruz last season, and try to figure out how he should approach him during this afternoon’s game. [Sure, these are all super-small sample sizes, but let’s have some fun instead of worrying about the health of Tanaka’s arm.]

Tanaka did a good job of keeping the ball out of the middle of the plate, peppering the bottom outside corner with sliders, while mixing in a handful of high fastballs and a few sinkers in on the hands of Cruz.

The down-and-away slider was Tanaka’s key put-away pitch in the matchup, netting him four of the six outs against Cruz, including all three strikeouts on pitches at or below the knees.

That strategy was a bit unusual for Tanaka last year, who was more likely to go to his splitter in two-strike counts against righties (39 percent of the time) than his slider (31 percent). However, it was a smart game plan against Cruz, who last year really struggled with sliders from same-sided pitchers. He whiffed on nearly half of his swings against sliders and struck out a whopping 42 times on the pitch (second-most in the AL).

Another interesting trend is that Tanaka wasn’t afraid to “pitch backwards,” throwing his offspeed pitches early and often in the count. He started three of the six at-bats with sliders and kept Cruz off-balance by throwing him more off-speed pitches (11) than fastballs (9) in the six at-bats.

Tanaka is one of four pitchers that has faced Cruz at least six times since the start of last season and gotten him out every time. Can he shut down one of the game’s best sluggers again this year?

Like many power hitters, Cruz’s sweetspot is on the middle-to-inner third of the zone and off the inside corner of the plate, where he’s hit 14 of his 18 homers this season. Hey Tanaka, try to avoid that area, please:

If Tanaka can get into a favorable count, throwing him a slider down and away — similar to last year — is probably a good idea. Cruz has whiffed on nearly 40 percent of his swings against sliders from right-handed pitchers this year, and he’s done little damage when making contact. He’s hit just one homer off a slider from a righty and more than half of those pitches that he’s put in play have been grounders. Tanaka’s slider had been nasty in his last two starts, getting whiffs on 56 percent of the swings against the pitch, including three strikeouts.

When Tanaka wants to throw a fastball in this matchup, he’d be smart to go to his four-seamer instead of his sinker. Cruz is slugging roughly 300 points higher against sinkers (.778) than four-seam fastballs (.471) from right-handers this year, and he’s twice as likely to whiff against a four-seamer than a sinker from a righty.

That pitch selection should favor Tanaka, who has decreased his sinker usage since his first two starts (when it got crushed), and starting throwing more four-seamers in his last two starts (with good results). Overall, Tanaka’s four-seamer has been a much better fastball option for him than his sinker this season:

That’s right, Tanaka has thrown 73 four-seam fastballs in 2015 and the only player to get a hit off the pitch was Russell Martin with a single in the season opener. It’s been an nice pitch for him so far, and Tanaka should feel comfortable challenging Cruz with well-located four-seamers this afternoon.

Tanaka vs. Cruz will be among the most anticipated matchups of the game, and could easily be one of the most pivotal, too. If Tanaka can use his four-seamer and slider effectively, and follow a similar game plan as he’s done in the past against Cruz, there is a good chance he’ll be able to win the battle with the Mariners slugger once again.

Can Michael Pineda rebound against the Royals?

May 27, 2015 by Katie Sharp 222 Comments

Michael Pineda was the model of consistency for the first 20 games of his pinstriped career. He never gave up more than three runs in consecutive outings, and he’d never had a “disaster” start where he allowed more runs than innings pitched (except for his pine tar-shortend game last year).

Until May 15 (5 1/3 IP, 5 R, 10 H, 1 K) and May 22 (6 IP, 7 R, 8 H, 4 K) happened.

It’s definitely not time to press the panic button after just two poor starts, but this (extremely) mini-slump is somewhat noteworthy because it’s the first time Pineda has struggled in back-to-back outings since joining the Yankees.

With Pineda facing the Royals again this afternoon — the same lineup that clobbered him less than two weeks ago — let’s take a look inside the numbers to see what’s gone wrong for the right-hander in his last two turns, and how he can get back on track against the best team in baseball on Wednesday.

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Here’s a quick overview of his first seven starts this season compared to his last two:

	IP	ERA	FIP	K%	BB%	HR
Last 2	11 1/3	7.15	4.82	9.3%	1.9%	2
First 7	46 1/3	2.72	1.91	29.5%	1.6%	3

The most shocking number in the table above is the huge drop in his strikeout rate. Sure, that 30 percent figure is skewed a bit by the 16-strikeout game. But the fact that he’s had his two lowest strikeout totals of the season in his last two games is really hard to ignore.

Predictably, batters are making more contact against Pineda in his past two games (83 percent) compared to his first seven (77 percent), but that doesn’t completely explain the lack of whiffs. Almost all of the increase in that contact rate is on pitches outside the zone — the pitches that he normally uses to get strikeouts.

	Contact %	O-Swing %	O-Contact %	Z-Contact %
Last 2	82.9%	34.8%	71.0%	87.5%
First 7	76.5%	32.3%	56.9%	86.5%

So while Pineda is still generating above-average swing rates on those out-of-zone offerings, hitters haven’t been fooled by his stuff and he’s not missing as many bats with those pitches.

Over his last two games, his signature slider has hardly been the wipeout pitch that made Pineda such a dominant force on the mound to start the season. He’s lost about an inch of horizontal movement on his slider, making it easier for hitters to square up on the pitch. After getting batters to whiff on 19 percent of his sliders in his first seven games, that rate has plummeted to just nine percent since then.

Another concern related to this lack of strikeouts is his inability to finish off hitters when ahead. Pineda is actually getting into more favorable counts now, but he hasn’t been able to execute those put-away pitches.

Opponents are 5-for-8 against him in pitchers’ counts over the last two games, a situation that the Royals really took advantage of when they crushed Pineda on May 15. The game was decided in the sixth inning as Pineda allowed two doubles and a triple to three of the first four batters he faced — unsurprisingly, each of those extra-base hits came on a 1-2 pitch from the right-hander.

The other obvious problem for Pineda recently is that he’s simply been more hittable, and he’s given up nearly as many runs in his last two outings (12) as in his first seven (14). Let’s break it down, good-bad-ugly style:

• The good: he’s still generating ground balls at the exact same rate (53 percent);
• The bad: he’s traded a few fly balls for line drives;
• The ugly: he’s really struggled when pitching from stretch:

After limiting batters to a .230 average with runners on base in his first seven starts, they are 8-for-20 (.400) over the last two games. Even worse, Pineda has stranded just 43 percent of baserunners during this mini-slump, a drop of more than 30 percentage points from the first month of the season (78 percent). Not being able to get that big strikeout in those key scoring situations has really hurt him recently.

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While there are some reasons to be optimistic that Pineda will be able to rebound today against the Royals — he’s still getting a ton of grounders, showing excellent control and limiting walks — he will definitely be challenged by Kansas City’s high-contact lineup and powerful lefty bats.

Pineda, who held opposite-handed batters to a .200 average in his first seven outings, has been hit hard by lefties in his last two starts. They are a combined 10-for-24, and he’s allowed identical 5-for-12 lines against both the Royals (May 15) and Rangers (May 22).

If Pineda can’t contain the Royals’ quartet of Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Alex Gordon and Kendrys Morales — three lefties and a switch-hitter — it could be another long afternoon for the Yankees and their budding staff ace.