Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Yankees vs. Indians - Focus: Ian Kennedy
Following Ian Kennedy since he entered the Yankees organization has been a hobby of mine. I watched his start today hoping to see just how much he’s progressed this Spring as we near opening day. Here are a few notes from the game:
First inning:
Kennedy went with all fastballs and change-ups to Sizemore and got him to sky one to shallow center. It would have been an out but Melky lost it in the sun and Sizemore reached third on the E8. Whether this rattled him or not is questionable since he then got Cabrera to ground out with some good movement on his fastball. He walked Hafner on 4 pitches, seeming like he wanted no part of “Pronk”.
His second worst pitch of the inning came on a 2-0 pitch to Pheralta that floated right over the heart of the plate resulting in a double. This was followed by his worst pitch of the inning: a belt-high fastball on 0-2 to Garko which was deposited over the left field wall.
Second inning:
Kennedy definitely picked up a few ticks on the gun in the second adding about 2 mph on his fastball. However, his curve was all over the place. He should have struck out Sizemore looking but didn’t get the call. Instead he ended up striking him out swinging on a great change on 3-2.
Third inning:
Kennedy continued to have trouble with Pheralta as he gave up a leadoff single to right to the Indians’ shortstop.
He induced a nice 5-4-3 DP to get two outs.
Fourth inning:
The highlight of this inning was a swinging strikeout of Hafner on a perfect 80 mph change that moved down and away.
Fifth inning:
After getting V-Mart to groundout, Kennedy K’ed Pheralta looking with a well-placed fastball at the knees. This would end the afternoon for Ian as he was pulled with two outs in the fifth after having thrown 92 pitches.
Closing notes:
After a great game against Toronto, Kennedy definitely struggled with his command early in the game against the Indian batters. He threw 92 pitches, 48 for strikes, and seemed to have trouble locating his 4-seamer. I believe he threw only one curve for a strike the entire afternoon. However, he had some excellent movement on his change and even managed to paint the corners with his fastball on some batters. Of some concern is the number of fly outs and line drives he gave up.
The YES gun never had Kennedy over 89 mph on any pitch. However, he did start throwing closer to 89 as the game progressed. In the first he was topping off at around 86 on his fastball. By the fourth he was never really below 88 on any of his fastballs. So I’d say he might not be totally rearing back and giving 100% on his 4-seamer just yet.
I’m not overly concerned with this start given his overall Spring Training performance. There was plenty to build off of with two excellent change-up strikeouts to Sizemore and Hafner. Kennedy will be living off his command so he does need to get that under control to succeed this season, particularly his 4-seam fastball.
Given that Kennedy’s money-pitch (change) looked great today, I’d say this was a very a promising start. He struggled early but got the game under control after the 4-run first. Right now, Kennedy is the Yankees #5 starter and is scheduled to pitch April 5th against the Devil Rays at Yankee Stadium.
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