Hot Holland

So Derek Holland just threw two consecutive complete games. He had two in his career (one in 2009, one earlier in June).

Best part: The start before those back-to-back games lasted than an inning. Go figure.

Naturally, this compelled me to look at some of his peripheral stats and plow through and finalize all of his pitch classifications.

Season	B:CS	IWZ	GB%
2009	2.0	0.558	0.42
2010	2.3	0.503	0.43
2011	1.8	0.558	0.47

Holland has gone from average to above average in ground balls. He's also become/returned to being a control pitcher.

Pitch mix when starting

Season	#	Four-seam FB	Two-seam FB	Change	Curveball	Slider
2009	1880	46%	23%	11%	8%	11%
2010	870	48%	13%	13%	6%	20%
2011	1895	42%	21%	14%	10%	13%

vs RHH

Season	#	Four-seam FB	Two-seam FB	Change	Curveball	Slider
2009	1461	43%	23%	14%	8%	12%
2010	719	47%	14%	16%	6%	18%
2011	1440	39%	22%	18%	12%	9%

vs LHH

Season	#	Four-seam FB	Two-seam FB	Change	Curveball	Slider
2009	419	58%	21%	2%	9%	11%
2010	151	52%	9%	3%	7%	28%
2011	455	51%	21%	3%	4%	22%

In a nutshell, the sinking two-seam fastball has returned and he's tossing more curveballs to right-handed batters.

Zooming in on 2011 shows what may be the most striking thing of all.



While Holland's sinker usage has picked-up in 2011, it's actually his four-seam fastball that's picked-up usage as 2011 moves forward.



More heaters on top of a bigger base of sinkers equals a hotter Holland?

Read more great baseball stuff at The Hardball Times.

Source: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/hot-holland/

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