Is Doug Fister Actually This Good?

Well, I certainly don’t think so, but after shutting down the White Sox and taming the Yankees, it’s really hard to say anything negative about him. He’s a guy that’s tough to peg. We know he isn’t overpowering – last night his fastballs topped out at 90, averaged about 88.11. So he doesn’t blow anyone away. Looking at the way he mixes hit pitches, the only conclusion I can come to is that the key is his change.

Of his 101 pitches, 40 of them were change ups. Compare that to the fact that only 45 of them were fastballs. He obviously has a lot of confidence with that pitch, and is willing to throw it to anyone. Of his 10 swinging strikes, 6 of them came on change ups. Does the fact that he’s nearly 7 feet tall add some sort of deception when that 80 MPH pitch floats in? I have no idea, but it’s certainly possible. A good analogy I heard yesterday was “it’s like if Randy Johnson was throwing you an 80 MPH change”. That’s just a weird image. I don’t know to what extent Fister is going to be able to keep this up, but right now it’s working, and he just held the best lineup in baseball to only 3 runs in 7 innings, while making them swing and miss 10 times.

The other element is getting ahead. You’re going to be in significantly better shape if you don’t let yourself fall into hitter’s counts, and Fister used that to his advantage. He started to lose a bit of that command in the later innings, but over the first 4 innings he was 11-for-18 on first pitch strikes. This is usually the part where I’d mention the fact that he got squeezed, but miraculously I didn’t notice too much of that on Sunday.

In case you wanted info about any of his other pitches on Sunday, here’s his pitch breakdown via Brooks Baseball:

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