First-pitch aggressiveness driving Estrada's resurgence
If you spend enough time around baseball at some point you’ll probably hear someone say “the best pitch in baseball is strike one.”
It’s a stupid saying. The best pitch in baseball is strike three. The next time you see a highlight reel packed with strike ones will be the first. Even so, the reason this phrase has a shelf life is that first strikes are crucial, especially first-pitch strikes.
The difference between 0-1 and 1-0 changes the complexion of any at-bat, and pitchers who are consistently working from ahead in the count find themselves at an enormous advantage. That’s certainly been the case for Marco Estrada of late.
Estrada got off to a rough start to 2018, posting a 5.68 ERA in 11 starts with a thoroughly unimpressive 6.42 K/9 mark and a gruesome 1.84 HR/9. Since the calendar turned to June he’s been a different guy. This month the veteran has an ERA of 1.45 in three consecutive quality starts with 19 strikeouts and just three walks in 18.2 innings of work.
It’s undoubtedly a small sample, but it looks like Estrada is turning his season around — and he’s doing it with the power of strike one. This month the 34-year-old has a first-pitch strike rate of 75.7 percent. That’s the fourth-best percentage in the majors and well above his 63.9 percent from April and May. If that improvement doesn’t seem like a big deal, consider that hitters are slashing .298/.382/.663 against Estrada when he falls behind 1-0 but just .243/.268/.403 when the right-hander goes up 0-1.
How, precisely, does a little bit more first-pitch aggressiveness take a pitcher from season-long struggles to domination, though? In Estrada’s case it’s a matter of opening up his repertoire. The right-hander is a four-pitch hurler in theory, but he can only reliably command his fastball and changeup. That means that if he goes down 1-0 opponents can sit on one of those two pitches. That’s because Estrada isn’t comfortable going to his cutter or curveball in a spot where he needs a strike:
So if you get up 1-0 on Estrada you can sit on one pitch. If you get it, you take your cut. If you don’t, you let the pitch zip by and in a worst-case scenario you’ve got yourself an even count.
On the flip side, when Estrada gets up 0-1 it puts him in a position to get creative and keep hitters guessing. Not only can he get the curveball and cutter involved, he can attack the edges of the zone without being worried that a ball will put him in a big hole.
In recent starts Estrada has shown exactly how this phenomenon plays out. Here’s what his 1-0 pitches looked like in his last outing against the Washington Nationals:
There are only five examples here thanks to a strong first-strike rate in the game (80 percent), but they are all fastballs and changeups. They’re also generally around the plate. Conversely, his 0-1 pitches looked like this:
It was the exact same story for Estrada in his previous start against the Baltimore Orioles. Once again, the 1-0 pitches were very vanilla:
Meanwhile, when Estrada got ahead — which happened 73.9 percent of the time — he was able to turn his repertoire loose and deliver a series of far less hittable offerings.
The idea that a pitcher has more and better options when he gets a favourable count is nothing new, but it’s particularly important in Estrada’s case because of how radically it affects his pitch mix. Thanks to all the pitching ahead the veteran has been doing this month his curve and cutter percentages have skyrocketed.
With strike one under his belt he’s more unpredictable, and therefore more dangerous. His best two pitches are always going to be his fastball and changeup, but a touch of added variety is handy — especially when he’s able to work deeper into games.
By pounding first-pitch strikes at an elite rate, Estrada looks like he might have found a course correction for his 2018 season. If this is the adjustment he needed, he’s found it too late to help the Blue Jays make a playoff run — but just in time to be an interesting piece come trade deadline time.
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