clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Tyler Clippard Has Lost His Curveball, Literally

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.    

↵
↵

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.    

↵
↵

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.