{"id":2311,"date":"2011-09-08T11:17:46","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T15:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2311"},"modified":"2011-09-25T01:20:41","modified_gmt":"2011-09-25T05:20:41","slug":"thoughts-on-peacocks-mlb-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2311","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Peacock’s MLB debut"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Peacock goes from 41st round flier to MLB pitcher. Photo via bleacherreport.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Those of us who meticulously follow the Nats farmhands and pitching prospects were given multiple treats in the wake of Stephen Strasburg<\/strong>‘s triumphant return on 9\/6 (box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 We also got to see the MLB debut of a very intriguing name in the future of this rotation, Brad Peacock<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

(We also got to finally see Atahualpa Severino<\/strong>, but not until after a rain delay blew out my 3-hour DVR recording.\u00a0 Apparently he blew away the one hitter he faced with 96mph heat.\u00a0 I wonder why we slogged along with Doug Slaten<\/strong> for so long if we had a 96mph fireballer available in the minors all season?)<\/p>\n

Peacock has been visible to those of us who havn’t traveled to either Harrisburg or Syracuse lately, appearing in the Futures game during the 2011 all-star break.\u00a0 On 9\/6 Peacock came into the game in relief despite being a starter all year, and inherited 2 runners from lefty Doug Slaten<\/strong> (who I thought was closer to being released than ever appearing in a game for this team again).\u00a0 He features (according to a pre-game interview) a 4-seamer (95mph normally), a 2-seamer, a knuckle-curve and a change.<\/p>\n

Peacock “only” throws 95 (click here for Pitch F\/X data on the night<\/a>) but its a sneaky fast 95, getting up on hitters by virtue of some slight tweaks he made to his mechanics this year to do a better job of hiding the ball before hitting his release point.\u00a0 He did a good job keeping his fastball low and definitely had a couple of borderline pitches called balls (at one point showing a bit of exasperation on the mound …).\u00a0 He definitely depends on the four-seamer predominantly; 15 of his 23 pitches were a 4-seam fastball.\u00a0 He says he throws a 2-seamer but we didn’t see it.\u00a0 We only saw a few change-ups as well (six per Pitch f\/x), but one of them was a 3-2 change-up to Ethier <\/strong>with the bases loaded that took some guts to throw.\u00a0 His 4-seamer definitely has action and movement, but I’m beginning to see why scouting pundits (Keith Law<\/strong>) keep saying that Peacock seems destined for the bullpen.\u00a0 I’d like to have seen the 2-seamer, or more of the curve-balls (he only threw three on the night, but all 3 were for strikes).<\/p>\n

His motion and mechanics are “effort-ful.”\u00a0 He definitely puts a lot into each pitch and he doesn’t have the easy arm action of other pitchers in our arsenal.\u00a0 Not a total red-flag, but I wonder if he’s a shoulder injury waiting to happen (ala Cole Kimball<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

He got a grounder from Matt Kemp<\/strong> (his first MLB hitter) on his curve-ball that Desmond could have (should have?) had, then got touched up for a few hits.\u00a0 On the night; he pitched 1 1\/3, gave up 4 hits and was charged with a run.\u00a0 He allowed both of Slaten’s runners to score.\u00a0 He most likely would have gone longer had the skies not opened up.\u00a0 A couple of the guys he faced really hit the ball on the button and he didn’t have a swinging strike all night (not a good sign).<\/p>\n

It’d be nice to see how he fares when he gets a longer outing to see if this was just nerves, an umpire squeezing him or something else.\u00a0 Perhaps he’ll take some starts from here to the end of the season (we’ll definitely need at least two spot starters because of double-headers on the schedule).\u00a0 Or perhaps the team will go to a 6-man rotation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of us who meticulously follow the Nats farmhands and pitching prospects were given multiple treats in the wake of Stephen Strasburg‘s triumphant return on 9\/6 (box\/gamer).\u00a0 We also got to see the MLB debut of a very intriguing name in the future of this rotation, Brad Peacock. (We also got to finally see Atahualpa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[144,141,35,100,80,110,145,38],"class_list":["post-2311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","tag-andre-ethier","tag-atahualpa-severino","tag-brad-peacock","tag-cole-kimball","tag-doug-slaten","tag-keith-law","tag-matt-kemp","tag-stephen-strasburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2311"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2349,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions\/2349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}