I knew my bobblehead would come in handy.
If you want to get an idea of Daniel Hudson’s potential, look no further than how he pitched Joe Mauer. You know, the soon-to-be American League MVP, two-time batting champ, current league leader in batting average, OBP and slugging percentage.
It’s not just that he held Mauer hitless. It’s that he got Mauer to hit a weak grounder to the left side with a runner on third, failing to drive in the run. Mauer rarely hits grounders to the left side.
It’s that he got Mauer to swing through a second consecutive changeup after he tracked one that was too low and too away.
It’s that, with the count full, he busted Mauer twice inside — getting a check-swing foul the first time, and a jam shot that fell harmlessly into Gordon Beckham’s mitt in foul territory the second.
He even dared throwing a slider low and in on Mauer. It’s his third-best pitch and doesn’t have a lot of life on it yet, but he put it in the perfect place, and it looked like a strike just long enough for Mauer to commit and roll it over to Chris Getz for a 4-3.
That’s the potential that Hudson has, and he was pretty consistent in showing it throughout his first major-league start. Unfortunately, at no point during Hudson’s five ultimately successful innings did anybody else bother joining him.
At this point, Hudson is only a two-pitch pitcher, but he pitched like he had four on Monday night. I mentioned the slider to Mauer, but he was more daring on his sequence to Michael Cuddyer in the third inning.
Hudson has the least confidence in his curveball, calling it a show-me pitch. He definitely gives it away, throwing it from a much higher arm slot, so he uses it sparingly to keep it on the hitter’s mind.
Well, he kept it on Cuddyer’s mind, because he threw it three times over the course of four pitches. It was almost one pitch too many, because Cuddyer went from swinging through it to taking it to taking it to deep center. Scott Podsednik flagged it down just in front of the warning track.
He probably wouldn’t be wise to do that often — at least not to a hitter of Cuddyer’s caliber — but it showed some balls to go at a guy with your lamest weapon three times, and with conviction.
The next inning (next batter, actually), he threw four different pitches to Delmon Young in succession. He missed with a fastball, missed with a slider, came back with a fastball that Young took for 2-1. Young swung through a changeup for strike two, then watched as Hudson clipped the corner with his curve for the backwards K. As a further testament to his unconventionality, he also threw a lot of 3-2 changeups, taking a page from the Mark Buehrle Playbook, perhaps.
There are a couple things he can work on immediately, without needing a more reliable third pitch.
No. 1: Changeup location. He can learn from the way he went back-to-back with the change on Mauer. The first started on the edge and dove well out of the zone before Mauer would even consider swinging. He corrected himself immediately on the second one, and it turned into the classic now-it’s-a-strike-now-it’s-not dive. It almost has a screwball’s movement, it’s that dramatic, and he should be able to harness it.
No. 2: Working up in the zone to lefties. Mauer wasn’t the only one who had trouble getting around and on top of Hudson’s belly-high offerings. Denard Span could only foul it back, Nick Punto corkscrewed himself into the ground, and Jason Kubel swung through it all evening.
Hudson’s delivery is unusual, and it seemed like lefties had a harder time getting a read on it. The low arm slot made his high heaters more tempting. Problem is, Hudson prefers to work around the knees, and had some location issues when A.J. Pierzynski raised the mitt. He’ll have to work on exploring that part of the zone more, now that he has to use the whole thing against major-league hitters.
Against righties, his preferred plan of attack is probably the wiser choice if Cuddyer’s final at-bat was any indication. With an 0-2 count, Hudson threw a fastball right in Pierzynski’s glove — center of the plate, letter high. Cuddyer was able to get on top of it and ground it past Getz for an RBI single (although a good second baseman probably keeps it in the infield at the very least). At any rate, it sure it nice when a young pitcher’s problem is keeping the ball down too much.
That’s basically the story of Hudson’s first start. Every negative can feasibly be shaped into positive with work — even the second inning, the only frame in which his pitching can take the blame. He got ahead of guys with his fastball, but couldn’t make his changeup look enough like a strike to get the third strike or weak ball in play. After Don Cooper’s mound visit, he seemed to throw it more aggressively. He threw 30 of his 98 pitches in the second, but with a little work, he can get an extra inning’s worth of efficiency.
If there’s one reason to be down on him, it was his throw after fielding Orlando Cabrera’s bunt. He already inherited Clayton Richard’s status as “surprise minor-league pitcher of the year” and his No. 54 — did he have to assume his mad throwing skills as well?
I digress. Having seen what Hudson can do against a lefty-heavy lineup, it would be nice to see him take his chances against a lineup with some right-handed power before the season’s up. He mixed in his changeup to righties more often than you would normally see, but against the Miguel Cabreras of the league, it would probably behoove the Sox to see where exactly he is with his slider and curve as they prepare an offseason workout plan.
That offseason workout plan will probably include a cutter, if every other White Sox pitcher is any indication. As the Cheat says, maybe he should get together with Jake Peavy a few times this winter.
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