[mlbvideo id=”32859111″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]
Dee Gordon, 2B
Yasiel Puig, RF
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Matt Kemp, CF
Carl Crawford, LF
Juan Uribe, 3B
A.J. Ellis, C
Josh Beckett, P
By Jon Weisman
Josh Beckett’s resurgence is rightfully getting attention, and the best piece about it came from the Register’s Pedro Moura, who chronicled how Dodger catcher A.J. Ellis urged Beckett to use his curveball more.
… And on April 11 in the Chase Field visitors’ locker room, four hours before the Dodgers played the Diamondbacks and two days after Beckett had been lit up in his 2014 debut, the catcher approached the pitcher with an urgent message.
“It was basically, ‘This is what you (expletive) need to do,’” Beckett said. “But he didn’t put it that brutally. He said, ‘Hey, I want to show you some numbers.’”
Of the data Ellis then presented, Beckett remembers most the unexpectedly low slugging percentages against his curveball for both left- and right-handed hitters. There was other information, too, all about his curve and its unhittability.
“He had clearly already been thinking about this,” Beckett said. “And he finally goes, ‘People just don’t hit your curveball.’” …
In a follow-up post, Daniel Brim of Dodgers Digest examined the statistical underpinnings of Beckett’s curveball.
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Matt Kemp leads all hitters in the Majors in on-base percentage and slugging percentage against right-handed starting pitchers in 2014, notes Bill Chuck of Gammons Daily.
Against right-handed pitchers overall this year, Yasiel Puig is tops on the Dodgers with a .415 OBP and .612 slugging. Here’s how the rest of the team has fared …
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