PIVOTAL OUTING AWAITS
Urquidy, once one of rotation’s most reliable starters, has become weakest link
José Urquidy is not missing bats. Opponents are not chasing his changeup or the new cutter he debuted earlier this season. He does not have the sort of fastball velocity to compensate for this absence of swing and miss. The results are apparent.
No qualified starting pitcher has allowed more hits per nine innings than Urquidy’s 12.3. Boston struck 12 against him in five frames earlier this week, a start rendered a footnote by the Astros’ five second-inning home runs during a 13-4 win. The Red Sox averaged a 91 mph exit velocity on the 26 balls they put in play. They took 55 swings against Urquidy and whiffed just seven times.
“I’m doing something bad, for sure,” Urquidy said on Saturday. “I’ve got to fix it.”
His first attempt will arrive on Sunday in Houston’s series finale against the Rangers at Minute Maid Park. Urquidy will take the baseball as the rotation’s weakest link, one season after being one of its most reliable participants. The outing in Boston inflated Urquidy’s ERA to 4.81 after seven starts. His 1.485 WHIP is by far the highest on Houston’s starting rotation.
“Getting back to consistency and his bread and butter is really going to do wonders for him,” pitching coach Josh Miller said on Saturday.
Urquidy is a pitcher prone to some contact. He throws 68 percent of his pitches for strikes, walks just 1.1 batters per nine innings and doesn’t have overwhelming velocity. The key is to generate enough swing-and-miss with secondary pitches to keep teams from keying in on Urquidy’s four-seam fastball, which he’s often struggled to elevate consistently this season.
Urquidy’s 18.9 percent whiff rate is the lowest of his major league career. It trails the major league average by almost seven percent. Urquidy posted a 28.3 percent whiff rate in 2019 and a 24.9 clip last season. Opponents are chasing outside the strike zone at just a 26.2 percent rate, too — below league average and another career-low for Urquidy.
Hitters are averaging a 91.8 mph exit velocity against him. Urquidy allowed an 88.6 mph average exit velocity last season. Houston has an elite defense to protect him, but relying on it every time is begging for disaster.
Statcast defines a “barrel” as a ball struck with at least a 98 mph exit velocity. Urquidy has surrendered one in 12.2 percent of his batted ball events. Only nine major league starters have a higher frequency.
“He’ll have a game where he’ll whiff eight or 10 guys when he really gets the changeup going, really gets the fastball to the top rail and execute some spin, I think that’s what we need to get back to,” Miller said. “Back to basics. Get the fastball up and the changeup down and mix other things in there.”
Urquidy throws his changeup more than any secondary pitch. During his first three major league seasons, Urquidy used it to generate at least a 27 percent whiff rate. This season, it’s at 21.1 percent. Opponents are just 8for-31 against the pitch, but the problem is they’re laying off of it completely, putting Urquidy in disadvantaged counts and forcing him to throw fastballs in the strike zone.
Urquidy is averaging 86.3 mph on changeup this season. He didn’t throw it harder than 84.4 mph in any of his previous three seasons. Both Miller and Urquidy acknowledged the uptick in velocity could be behind the lack of chase. Urquidy said the pitch does not have the same side spin to which he’s accustomed — presumably because it has less time to move.
“It’s been within reasonable standard deviations of his normal changeup in terms of movement,” Miller said. “I think it is a little bit harder, which is going to give it a little bit less of a chance to move. I think it’s more about just executing it down.”
Before the lockout, Miller and assistant pitching coach Bill Murphy instructed Urquidy to start throwing a cutter to afford him another weapon against righthanded hitters. Urquidy has all but ditched his slider in favor of the new offering. According to BaseballSavant, he’s thrown 33 sliders and 85 cutters this season. He threw 318 sliders last season.
“I have to throw and throw and throw it to get it,” Urquidy said of his cutter. “For a new pitch, it’s hard, so I have to practice it and throw it. I have to get the confidence in that pitch, but it’s hard. I’ve never thrown a cutter. This is the first time in my life.”
Judging solely on metrics, Urquidy’s cutter is performing well. It is generating swing and miss at a 34.4 percent clip — higher than any offering in his four-pitch arsenal. Opponents have only one extrabase hit against it through seven starts, but the start in Boston brought out a troubling trend.
Urquidy threw 24 cutters against the Red Sox and generated 12 swings. Three were whiffs, leading Miller to wonder whether Urquidy may be better served to re-incorporate his slider.
“I think he executed a ton of good cutters to the glove side down and didn’t get chases, didn’t get whiffs,” Miller said. “I think we have to reevaluate his mix a bit, probably have him throw a few more sliders if we can, to have those play off each other and that should do some wonders.”