The cloud in the silver lining

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm generally an upbeat person, often trying to find hopeful signs in even the worst losses. So, you might expect that I'd have found Ian Kennedy's performance last night to be cause for celebration. After all, it was Kennedy's best start by far this season, and one of only two which didn't result in a Yankee loss. Surprisingly, however, what I saw last night didn't seem like good pitching from Ian Kennedy, but bad hitting from the Baltimore Orioles.

Kennedy started the game by throwing twelve straight fastballs to retire the first three batters, and continued to rely heavily on that pitch for the rest of the game, throwing it around 80% of the time. This was fine last night, as the Orioles weren't able to hit that fastball particularly well, but it's not a strategy that I think will work for him very often. Kennedy simply doesn't have the kind of overpowering fastball that you need to be able to pull that off, and he needs to use his other pitches to keep hitters off balance. Unfortunately, none of those other pitches seemed to be working for him last night, and therein lies the problem. Of the few off speed pitches that he threw, less than half were strikes. Unless Kennedy can improve upon that, I think we're going to see hitters simply ignore his off speed pitches and wait for a fastball they can hit hard, much as they've done before.