Posted by Matt Sisson on Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 3:11 pm

In his last start, Joba Chamberlain fanned 12 Red Sox through 5.2 innings while tossing 108 pitches. Of those 12 K’s, 10 were in which batters were called out on strikes looking. Through the wonders of Pitch-f/x data, I’ve taken a closer look at the games with a focus on Joba’s 12 K’s.

The first graphs are the traditional release point and pitch speed graphs that are usually included in my analysis.

Joba’s release points are consistent and he was able to increase the velocity of his fastballs as the game progressed, topping out at nearly 96MPH at the end of the game.

Now lets look at the strike zone plot for the game.

Now just strikes from the 12 AB’s in which Joba got a K.

CS- Called Strike, FB- Foul Ball, SS- Swinging Strike

Now the K’s against only left handed batters.

And now K’s against right handed batters only.

As the graphs show, Joba approaches hitters with a Clemens-like approach of pounding the batter inside. A majority of the strikes Joba threw to lefties were outside the strike zone, in on the batter. It appears the umpire a bit generous with his use of called strikes. You do have to account for the +/- of 1 in on the strike plots but it still looks like Joba got away called strikes there.

If there’s a pitcher you’d like to see an analysis done on please let me know by leaving a comment or emailing me at Mathew.Sisson@gmail.com.