A Little Razz-mataz

A Little Razz-mataz

A second excellent outing by Darrell Rasner yesterday begs the question - How's he doing it?

If we are to believe Al "The Arrogant Professor" Leiter, a fastball without 92 MPH velocity or better mandates plus secondary pitches for a hurler to be successful. As Rasner topped out at 89 yesterday he must have had success due to some great curves/sliders/changeups, right? Wrong.

In the first inning, Rasner threw 12 pitches; 10 fastballs.
In the second inning Rasner threw 14 pitches; 8 fastballs.
In the third inning Rasner threw 10 pitches; 5 fastballs.
In the 4th inning Rasner threw 13 pitches; 7 fastballs.
In the 5th inning Rasner threw 10 pitches; 7 fastballs.

Rick Peterson, the Met pitching coach, likes to say that the 4 biggest elements to a pitcher's success are, in order, location, movement, velocity and change of speed. Darrell Rasner proved that point yesterday.

Against a great hitting team, and armed primarily with 87-89 MPH heat, Rasner located his fastball extremely well yesterday, and threw 61 of his 87 pitches for strikes.

Having Joba's 99 MPH fastball is nice, but even then (as Krazy Kyle has shown us in years past) location is still the key to being successful. If Rasner keeps locating well and throwing strikes he could be around for a very long time.