Posted by Craig Brown on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 2:22 pm

Since the turn of the century, 199 starting pitchers have thrown more than 130 pitches in a start. Three of those starts have come this year. In the first of a three part series, we’ll look at each start and how the pitchers have fared in the starts following.

We’ll begin on April 29 in Milwaukee when Pirates starter Ian Snell was engaged in a pitchers duel with Yovani Gallardo. By the time Snell exited the game after seven innings, he had thrown a career high 131 pitches. His line for the game:

7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 5 SO

According to the PITCHf/x data collected at brooksbaseball.net, Snell struggled to maintain his velocity in the middle innings, but finished strong.

His average FB in this start was 91.03 mph, which is right in line with his current seasonal average of 91.6 mph. The dip in velocity is interesting because it’s the converse of how many pitchers develop through the game. Most start with some of their lowest velocities, loosen up in the middle innings and tire later in the game. Snell did the opposite here.

Couple the high pitch count with the fact that Snell’s previous high in his career was 120 pitches back in 2007, and this seems even more extreme. In fact, covering Snell’s entire career (113 starts) he’s thrown more than 110 pitches just 10 times. And he hadn’t thrown that many pitches since a start in May of 2008. As we would expect, Snell was nowhere near as sharp in his next outing. His average FB dropped to 90.43 mph, which tells only part of the story. The real issue in this start was his movement, or lack of. Compare his velocity from April 29 to his following start.

His velocity in this start followed a more conventional trend. What wasn’t so conventional according to the PITCHf/x data, was a fastball and change that were flatter than usual. Conversely, he wasn’t locating his slider and was missing badly. Hitters were quick to adjust, feasting on his fastball and laying off the slider. The result:

5 IP, 4 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 2 SO

His ineffectiveness was underscored by the fact that of his 94 pitches in this game, only three were swung on and missed.

Despite the high pitch count of his April 29 start, I don’t think it has had any negative long-term effects. Here’s Snell before and through his 131 pitch start:
29 IP, 3.72 ERA, 9.0 H/9, 5.6 BB/9, 6.2 K/9

Sure, that’s a decent ERA, but it’s not like he was on fire to start the season. His walk rate was astronomical and his WHIP was a gaudy 1.62.

Snell since his 131 pitch start:
36 IP, 7.00 ERA, 9.8 H/9, 4.5 BB/9, 6.25 K/9

The ERA has exploded, but that’s because his walk and hit rates again yielded a too-high 1.58 WHIP. A pitcher that allows this many base runners can dodge a few bullets, but over the course of the season, this is going to catch up to him.

Snell has been horrible since that start back on the 29th of April. But he was horrible before that start as well. His moderate ERA to that point masked some deeper issues that have since come to the surface.