Manny Ramirez's 500th HR

Congratulations to Manny Ramirez on his 500th career HR.

The HR came in the top of the 7th inning last night at Baltimore vs Chad Bradford.

The pitch was an 82 MPH fastball right down the heart of the plate. Here is the location according to pitch f/x:
That pitch is belt high and right down the middle. I couldn't make that up.

One last thing. The home run was to right center. We always here that when Manny is locked in, he drives the ball to right center. This is a great example of that. A pitch right down the middle and instead of trying to pull it, he just goes with it to right center. Here is the video from the home run for anyone who hasn't seen it:

Manny Ramirez vs Pitch Speed

So here is a quick look at Manny Ramirez vs various pitch speeds.


So what kind of conclusions can we draw from this chart? Well, until we calculate league average, not much. We can't know if this is good or bad. One thing I can say is that his contact percentage is fairly consistent vs pitch speed. I am looking forward to calculating the league averages at these various speeds to see just where Manny is on average.

My next two projects will be calculating league average at these various speeds and then doing some random players to see if anything jumps out.

With that said, does anyone have any stats that they would like to see?

Disclaimer: BABIP includes HR's. The BABIP is off from what fangraphs has because there are pitches that aren't tracked by Pitch F/X

How did Joe Blanton beat the Red Sox?

After staring at the data for around two hours, I really can't put my finger on it. I'll post the numbers and if you can come up with anything, you let me know.

SEASON AVERAGE
Pitch Type	Pfx_x	Pfx_z	Speed	Spin Angle
FB	-5.47	9.81	89	209
CB	5.59	-7.11	75	39
CH	-6.58	6.52	82	225
CU	-1.63	11.44	89	188
SL	5.35	4.56	82	131

MAY 25th vs Red Sox
Pitch Type	Pfx_x	Pfx_z	Speed	Spin Angle
FB	-5.59	10.13	89	209
CB	4.05	-5.58	75	40
CH	-6.83	6.58	82	226
CU	-2.28	11.33	90	191
SL	5.12	0.72	80	98

Nothing really outside the norm here. His fastball moved to his glove side a little more than usual and his slider had less downward movement, but that isn't significant when you see the next chart.


Lots of called strikes on the fastball. For a pitch that doesn't get many swinging strikes (only 14 total on the year!), they shouldn't have been sitting on his other pitches so much. While the Red Sox like to work the counts, they should have looked to be more aggressive vs Blanton. In fact, they only swung at 12 of his 55 fastballs all day. On the other hand, they were clearly fooled when he threw his changeup. It was thrown 19 times and they swung 9 times, putting it in play 3 times for one hit.

To further back up my point on being more aggressive when he throws the fastball, both runs came off his fastball: The solo HR by David Ortiz in the first and the RBI single by Manny Ramirez.

The Red Sox will look to bounce back tomorrow, which shouldn't figure to be any easier. They face Felix Hernandez.