I watched Yu Darvish pitch for the first time the other night, when Japan played Korea for the WBC title; after having heard so much about his talent, I was excited to see him pitch. He didn't disappoint on the stuff -- he was throwing what looked to be a wicked curveball, moving from 1-to-7, as well as a hard moving fastball in the mid-90s. The stuff looked great, but something wasn't right...

I was perplexed by his pitching approach. Here's a kid with an insanely hard moving fastball at a very good velocity, throwing his curveball almost exclusively to early batters. This, of course, resulted in placing the tying baserunners on the basepaths via errant curveballs that continually missed the zone.

And then I thought of a riddle; pitching "forwards," a pitcher will establish his fastball, and bring in the off-speed or breaking pitch to keep the batter off balance. Pitching "backwards," a pitcher will throw his off-speed or breaking pitch in different counts, especially fastball counts, to keep the hitter guessing. But I couldn't determine which Darvish was working from, or what exactly it was that he failed to accomplish on the mound. 

I want to challenge Darvish's approach and note that I have never understood why pitchers with 95 MPH fastballs dink around with curveball-happy pitching approaches. Curveballs are more difficult to control than fastballs, and also more prone to mistake. Although it can happen, it is more difficult to hang a 95 MPH fastball than an 85 PH curveball. Of course, the fastball becomes more predictable when a pitcher works the curveball too frequently, with little success, and little control. 

Then again, I wonder if Darvish was enacting a sound pitching strategy, and it was merely his execution that was amiss. Afterall, throwing that curveball early in the count, in standard fastball counts, is a sound way to pitch backwards (of course, when you establish the curve). Besides, one of the regular lines I featured about Dave Bush in series previews throughout the last two years was that his success depended upon changing up his first pitch, and establishing his off-speed pitches early in the count; why wouldn't I expect Darvish to do the same.

The difference, it seems to me, is that fastball velocity and movement. Establishing the curveball and change up early in the count is absolutely crucial when your fastball is between 88 and 90 MPH, or lower. But the sheer difficulty in timing drawn from that  increase in velocity should make a 96-MPH fastball more prominent in a pitcher's early count mix. Not even the old saying -- "it doens't matter how fast it is, if it's straight the batter will hit it" -- fits here; Darvish's fastball was far from straight. It had wicked late movement, sometimes like cutters and sinkers.

Establishing a hard, moving fastball early in the count seems to be a crucial step to success for a power pitcher. First off, early swings might bring contact, but those swings could certainly result in some groundballs or weakly hit balls if the location is there and the movement is strong. Secondly, an early count approach for a power pitcher includes a luxury that other pitchers cannot afford -- early mistakes with the fastball are still difficult to capitalize on for the batter because of the combination of velocity and movement. 

The difference between a power pitcher and a non-power pitcher is simple: while both have the potential to be hit hard or lose control by relying too consistently on off-speed or breaking pitches, and both have the potential to make mistakes with those breaking pitches, the trick is actually in the fastball; whereas a non-power pitcher needs those breaking pitches to disguise the fastball, and sneak that thing into the zone, it seems that a power pitcher features a fastball that doesn't need any crutch. A power sinkerballer -- somewhat like Darvish -- has even a better disposition early in the count.

I do not feel that I am unjustly punishing Darvish's approach against Korea, or failing to understand the importance of pitching backwards. Upon further consideration, it seems to me that we really ought to question why pitchers with hard fastballs go "curveball happy" or "slider happy," when the dividends paid by that investment are probably not as rich as the plain 'ol fastball...