Per
Scott Reifert's blog, A.J. Pierzynski will be catching Mark Buehrle tonight. I had
become so lefty-centric when looking at Buehrle's match-ups through the rest of the season that I mistook "Santana" for Johan, when it was really the Angels' Ervin. Let's just hope our hitters don't do the same.
Anyway, my theory that Pieryznski catches Buehrle better will be put to the test sooner than I thought. We'll see what happens.
Update (12:40 AM): I had planned to chart Buehrle's pitches
tonight, but I ended up missing the first two innings because the Red Sox-Orioles game sharing the same Extra Innings channel lasted four hours.
So I did the best I could with Gameday, though I missed a few of the early batters because 1) sometimes Gameday lags, then skips past the final pitch of an at-bat and goes to the next hitter, and 2) Buehrle works really fast.
Here's the chart. What I noticed is that Buehrle didn't throw inside as much as he did against the Twins in his last A.J. outing, but he didn't really have to against the Angels.
He threw 27 pitches in the first inning, but only 39 in the next four. He consistently started with curves and changes, and the Angels threw their bats at it. Lots of weak pop-ups and ground balls -- at one point, he had eight grounders in a row.
I'll be charting the next Alomar start to compare -- though hopefully Buehrle's results with A.J. will make Alomar's presence less of a certainty.