On their first start of every month, we like to take a look back at just what the Jays pitchers did well, or poorly, before the flip of the calendar. We call this the Rotation Review. If you wish, you can find past review pieces by clicking here. Enjoy!
July Pitching Line: 3-1, 1.82 ERA, 5 GS, 34.2 IP, 36 H, 11 R, 7 ER, 17 K, 1 BB, 1 HR, 1 HBP.
YTD Pitching Line: 11-5, 3.29 ERA, 20 GS, 134 IP, 139 H, 54 R, 49 ER, 67 K, 21 BB, 13 HR, 2 HBP.
Like a fine wine, Mark Buehrle keeps getting better with age. Despite moving to a tougher division, ballpark and with a fastball that keeps declining in velocity Mark Buehrle just keeps improving. Over his last 78 starts he’s posted a 3.38 ERA over 498 innings and followed up a 1.75 ERA in June with a 1.82 ERA in July. In July he continued his streak of 6+ IP starts to 13 games before having it snapped against Seattle on July 26th.
To start July, Buehrle had one of his finest games as a Jay, going 7 innings giving up 4 hits, 1 run striking out 7 while walking none, also particularly impressive was his 61.1% groundball rate in the game as he kept Red Sox hitters off balance all game. Following up his terrific game he had somewhat of a stinker, but it wasn’t fully his fault as the Blue Jays committed 2 errors behind him. He was still entirely too hittable as the White Sox got 9 hits off the southpaw scoring 3 unearned runs in the 8th inning to put the game out of reach for the Blue Jays. From there on it was clear sailing for Mark Buehrle, he easily disposed of the AL leading Royals giving up just 5 hits and 2 runs in 7 innings and followed that up with another Gem against the faltering Oakland A’s giving up a single run on 8 hits. The streak snapping game against the Mariners was one that he would probably like to have back, 3 runs in five and two thirds innings walking his first batter of July and giving up his only July home runs. When a start like that is your worst start of the month, you’ve had a pretty stout month.
In 34.2 innings in july Mark Buehrle allowed just one free pass and one home run, how did he manage to keep hitters off the bases and generating weak contact all month though? The first thing that you notice with Buehrle’s numbers for July is his exceptional 70.3 First Strike %, always ahead in the count. After that, he just kept throwing strikes, 52.1% of all pitches he threw were in the strike zone. More than the number of strikes is the where he located them.
As the two graphics above show, he did a fantastic job of staying away from both handed batters, and busted right handers in when needed. He also mixed his pitches incredibly well, no pitch thrown more than 33% of the time and all 5 pitches used at least 9.5% of the time. Another remarkable month for a remarkable and fascinating pitcher. There is no telling how long Buehrle will pitch, but he really does seem to be getting better with every passing month.
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