Watched the game out of one eye while getting smashed by my son at Yugioh, haven't checked the eye's impressions against GameDay or Brooks or whatever, so all's yer get is the rhapsody of incoherent checkpoints...

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Tell you this, though.  Never saw a guy with Ian Snell's stuff try to pitch like Tommy John.

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=== Ian Snell ===

Great linescore, 0 hits thru 4.2, good for him, but I didn't see a 6-inning, 1-run performance. The A's don't have a lot of Teixeiras and ARods in there.

As we mentioned after his first start, the talent does not disappoint -- his talent level and skill set is a deadeye mirror for Gil Meche's.  But he has much more work to do than we'd hoped.

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Snell did hit 94 and 95 mph in his last inning, looked fresh all the way through, lost no velo at all, so that's huge.

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Threw one offspeed pitch :- / the Shiggy 83-84 humpback slider/soft change/name it, which as you know is my least-favorite pitch.

This pitch, thrown by Snell or anybody else, does not miss bats when in the strike zone.  The change-slurve CAN miss bats IFF thrown at the knees or on the black, to break outside the zone ...

But!  Snell doesn't often throw it that way.  He's not trying to get fishing.  He throws it up, and centered, to get a weak "oops" swing.  This is the very definition of pitching to contact (making the hitter put a ball in play that he didn't want to).

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Snell "pitches upside down" in the sense that he pounds the knees with the FB (and pitches up with the offspeed).   A knee-high FB is precisely how you AVOID missing bats, because ML hitters swing under fastballs and over offspeed stuff.  The bottom-of-kneecaps FB is "pitching to contact," as is the high slurve.

I don't think I've ever seen a STUFF pitcher like Snell go below the knees as much as Snell does.  He targets like Tommy John used to:  he wants to either hit the knees or miss low.  This is a weird strategy for somebody with electric stuff.

Throw strikes.  Babe Ruth's dead.  :- )

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Not that he necessarily threw 12 groundballs, because the high offspeed is going to be skied (if it's not tatered).   But the located FB and the single 83-84 change-speed is a game that is seeking to get AB's over early.

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Recommendation:  change eye levels with the FB, go up-and-down, get them confused so that they DO fish once in a while below the zone.  Throw the slider at the black, and miss a few bats, keeeed.

ONCE during the evening, I did see him go up the ladder with a 94 challenge fastball, and lo and behold, he got a garbage swing on it.  

On the contrary, I did not see an Oaklander fish for a pitch below the knees at any time.  I'll bet you that his FB's below the zone were like 17-for-18 balls or something ...

.... and then, the umps job him AT the knees, too, because they're sick of bending over.  Umps hate to move down to the ball so much.

So the other guys go in there, bend over to the ball, think "Make him get the ball up," so they don't fish at all.  Ever.  And the ump gives them the call on the low strikes, too.  It's too much to work against!

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Pounding the knees is something you only want to do if you plan on being Tim Hudson or Tommy John.  ... Jeff Fassero made it work because it whipsawed against a fork that came in looking like a fastball.

Snell's fastball absolutely does not move like that.  It is the wrong strategy for him.

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Snell has been pitching EXTREMELY to contact.   Open the engine up a little -- FB up, two different offspeeds outside the zone -- and you'll see those K's again.   He's got the stuff.

He's made progress:  the arm's stronger, the offspeed is in the zone, and the biggest question now may simply be strategic.

Cheers,

Dr D