Posted by Zach Sanders on Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 3:12 pm

On Tuesday, Freddy Garcia made his 2009 debut for the Chicago White Sox. He wasn’t all that impressive, going 4.1 innings, allowing 5 earned on 1 walk and 3 strikeouts. Let’s take a more detailed look in pitch f/x: (click image for larger view)

His slider has some pretty good horizontal movement on it, but it doesn’t have the vertical bite I would like to see. As you can see from the first base graph, he is keeping all of his pitches low in the zone, which should lead to some ground balls. His average fastball velocity clocked in at close to 90 MPH, higher than it’s been since 2005.

Garcia pitched 15 innings for the Tigers last year, and 58 innings for the Phillies in ‘07. Before that, he was a 200 IP horse for the Mariners and White Sox. While he won’t be much of a factor for the Chi-Sox this year, a healthy Freddy Garcia could help a team next season as a number 4 starter.