Now, that was a roadtrip. Road sweet road once again leaves the Brewers with a winning mark over an extended trip, and a 14-11 road mark that is one of the best in the National League. In fact, the only teams that have better road winning percentages on the road than the Brewers have also played fewer than 25 road games (Atlanta has 20, Cincinnati 21, and Philadelphia 22).

Only Colorado has a larger split between road games (26) and home games (17) than the Brewers (25 and 19), in cases where teams have played more road games than home games (St. Louis and Houston have the opposite case of extreme home dates thus far).

So, if I told you in March that the Brewers would play 6 more road games than home games through Memorial Day weekend, post a good winning percentage on the road, and boast a 214 to 191 runs differential through 44 games, what would you say?

Last 5 GS (unless otherwise listed)

Chris Carpenter (1-0, 1 GS, 0.00 runs average, 5.00 IP/GS; 1 quality start) @ Yovani Gallardo (3-1, 5 GS, 3.44 runs average, 6.80 IP/GS; 3 quality starts)

How fast would you expect a slider to be? Or, if a pitcher threw a fastball just under 93 MPH, how fast would you expect a slider to be? In my opinion, there is some type of tracking discrepancy regarding Carpenter’s second attempt at a new season, which occurred against the Cubs last week. Carpenter reportedly throws a slider this year that averages between 88 and 89 MPH, off of his 92.8 MPH average fastball, but a closer look at his most recent GameDay suggests that he’s actually throwing something that is closer to a cutter. Now, it wouldn’t be surprising if he threw a slider with little horizontal break and therefore mostly vertical break (which is rather slight compared to his curveball), but what I can’t get beyond is the idea that Carpenter’s slider is averaging 88.5 MPH. That’s a really, really hard slider for a pitcher who is “only” throwing a 92.8 MPH fastball.

(If you want some evidence that an 88.5 MPH slider is really hard, consider that in the 2008 National League, not one pitcher averaged a slider at or above 87 MPH, and that’s including pitchers like Johnny Cueto (94-95 MPH fastball), Ubaldo Jimenez (95-96 MPH sinker), C.C. Sabathia (94-95 MPH fastball), Matt Cain (93-94 MPH fastball), Todd Wellemeyer (93-93 MPH fastball), or Oliver Perez (92-93 MPH fastball) – and each of those guys threw a version of a slider as their main secondary pitch).

In seasons past, Carpenter used to throw an 84-85 MPH slider off of a 90-91 MPH fastball, which is a much more realistic velocity range; he featured a second fastball (probably a cutter) that worked around 86-87 MPH. I highly suspect that that is the pitch Carpenter is currently throwing above 88 MPH in 2009. At any rate, he is throwing harder than ever (his average fastball is the best of his career, and 26 of his 75 pitches on the 20^th were at or above 93 MPH), although his velocity did rapidly decrease on the 20^th (only 5 of those 26 pitches at or above 93 MPH came during the 4^th or 5^th inning).

Expect Carpenter to come out throwing hard, throwing almost nothing but fastballs and curveballs (around the mid-70s), with that bizarre little secondary fastball thrown in there around 88 or 89. Adding the little cutter / slider together with the cross-seam fastball, one might expect at least 50 of 75 pitches for Carpenter to be a fastball of some sort.

***

Sometimes, aces just don’t have it. We don’t always need to search for grand meaning in every win or loss as fans. That was clearly the case in Gallardo’s last start, during which he was cuffed around to the tune of 6 runs in 5 innings, a departure from his recent stretch of quality starts. In the past, Gallardo displayed great resiliency after being beaten without his best stuff, and as the weather warms up in Miller Park, look for the ace to stay even cooler on the mound while working his array of curveballs and fastballs in whichever counts he pleases.

Adam Wainwright (2-2, 5 GS, 4.15 runs average, 6.94 IP/GS; 3 quality starts) @ Jeff Suppan (2-1, 5 GS, 3.30 runs average, 6.00 IP/GS; 2 quality starts)

I have to say, I always thought that the Cardinals’ move of Wainwright from the bullpen to the rotation would harm the youngster’s arm, but as it turns out, Wainwright is a fine pitcher in the starting rotation. This thought occurred to me the other day, while I watched his near-complete game effort against the Cubs in St. Louis. Wainwright is evolving as a pitcher – he is throwing both his slider and his change up more frequently, and along with his collection of fastballs and patented drop curveball, his arsenal is developing into quite a robust selection.

Jeff Suppan was throwing hard in his last start. 28 of his 104 pitches were at or above 87 MPH, with several touching 88, 89 MPH, and another touching 90 MPH (I think this is significant because his average fastball in 2009 is between 86 and 87 MPH). Sometimes Suppan goes on these stretches, it seems, where he suddenly quits the cutter or the slider or the soft curveball, and hits the cross seam fastball. Suppan’s game plan, and the nature of his stuff, requires him to go to the well for different pet pitches throughout the season, and it’s always particularly fun to watch him when he does throw the harder fastball, and it’s even better when that approach brings him success.

Todd Wellemeyer (3-2, 5 GS, 4.50 runs average, 6.00 IP/GS; 3 quality starts) @ Manny Parra (3-1, 5 GS, 5.60 runs average, 5.46 IP/GS; 4 quality starts)

Wellemeyer is in the midst of one of those “take me as I am” stretches. 3 quality starts in his last 5 GS, each of which he won. He lost his 2 non-quality starts, and tallied a perfect quality start average –4.50 runs average, 6.00 IP/GS during the 5 game stretch. We seem to spend a lot of time talking about spectacular performances, extremely lucky W-L records, or pitchers who don’t deserve the fate they received, so much so that we tend to overlook stretches where pitchers receive exactly what they deserve.

Parra’s recent performances leave a lot of question marks: were the high baserunner totals and efficiency problems during his recent quality start stretch a hint of things to come? Or should we have purchased stock in his recent consecutive quality start streak as a sign of success for Parra? It’s not often that one can look at a pitcher’s best stretch ever – such as Parra’s four consecutive quality starts – and simply say, that might have been a sign of more trouble to come.