Well, so much for "Clipp and Save." Matt Capps has already started to struggle, and now, so has Tyler Clippard. As Mark Zuckerman notes:
↵↵↵From Opening Day through June 22, Clippard allowed 47 opposing batters to reach base in 45 2/3 innings. But in six appearances since then, he's allowed a staggering 18 batters to reach in only 5 2/3 innings. He's also allowed 10 runs (seven earned), raising his ERA from 1.58 to 2.63.
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There are a lot of reasons why Clippard might be struggling, but here's an interesting one: he's totally eliminated a pitch from his repertoire. Nats Stats went back and looked at pitch data and found this staggering piece of information, which he posted on Federal Baseball.
↵↵↵Other than injury, what could cause Clippard to struggle like this? I looked at the Pitch F/X data, and was shocked by what I saw. According to Pitch F/X, Tyler Clippard has not thrown a curve ball since May 19th.
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There's more great information in that post, but that really jumped out to me. Maybe the solution is as simple as remembering that he can throw a curveball once in a while. Really, it's ok Tyler.