Rangers meeting goal of cutting down walks
Pitchers focus on eliminating extra base runners.
Rangers starter Doug Fister “scattered” a mere 10 hits in less than three innings Tuesday.
He did not, however, walk anybody.
That — eliminating extra baserunners via walks — has been the biggest focus for the Rangers pitching staff this spring. Despite a 10-0 loss to the White Sox on Tuesday in which Chicago rapped out 20 hits, the Rangers have shown significant improvement.
“Compared to last year, it’s night and day,” pitching coach Doug Brocail said Tuesday. “I left here last year with a bad feeling about walks. And that came to fruition. This year, we’re pounding the zone. The guys realize contact is OK. We’re pitching in better, we’re pitching up better. We are pitching over the plane of the plate.”
Here is the thing about throwing the ball over the plate: There may be a lot of things in spring training that can be deceptive, but strikes are not. Strikes carry over into the season. If you can throw the ball over the plate during the spring, the strike zone stays the same during the season. Conversely, the same holds true about missing the zone. If you can’t find it in spring training, chances are not great for significant in-season improvement.
Last year, the Rangers allowed 125 walks in 315 spring training innings, an average of 3.57 per nine innings. Take out the minor leaguers and the prospects, the 12 guys who ended up throwing the most innings for the Rangers in 2017 averaged 3.43 walks per nine innings. For the regular season, the Rangers averaged 3.51 walks per nine, 13th in the American League.
This spring, the walks have been down significantly. The Rangers began Tuesday with just 68 walks, tied for the second lowest in the majors, and an average of 2.74 per nine innings. The 15 pitchers still in competition for jobs began the day averaging 2.41 walks per nine innings. Tuesday, they combined for just one walk — a leadoff fourpitch walk by Keone Kela — in the fifth.
“I don’t know the numbers exactly, but I’m not writing down a lot of them, so it makes me happy,” Brocail said. “It has been, by far [the biggest positive development].”
Manager Jeff Banister agreed.
“I’m really pleased with where we are at,” he said. “We’re light years ahead of where we were. We’ve put emphasis on throwing strikes and challenging hitters to put the ball in play. We’ve done very well. And that is true, the ability to throw strikes remains the same.”
The Rangers have stressed “conversion counts” all spring. Those are counts in which the leverage of an at-bat hangs in the balance. They are counts such as 0-0 and 1-1. When the count began 1-0 last year, opponents hit .272 against Rangers pitchers, but only .235 if it started 0-1. Likewise, after 2-1, the batting average was .254 vs. .184 after 1-2.
“The conversion counts get spoken about every day, 50 times a day,” Brocail said. “We talk about it in the dugout after innings if we have to. We do not want to put guys back in a fastball count.”
What was encouraging for the Rangers on a messy Tuesday was that although Fister wasn’t sharp, he didn’t try to trick hitters. He has allowed only one walk in 9 1/3 innings this spring.
“I’m a pitch-to-contact pitcher,” he said.
“I’m going to give up some hits. Today, the fastball was a little too up and too flat, but I’m going to continue to pitch to contact and then expand the zone.”