In his last start Andy Sonnanstine's control was off and his location erratic. He would last only 3 innings and give up eight runs. Tuesday night would be much different. Sonnanstine's control was greatly improved and his location was spot on, resulting in one of his best games of the season
Tonight was vintage Sonnanstine. He mixed his pitches very well, using three varities of fastball, a changeup, curveball and a slider according to BrooksBaseball. His most effective pitch of the night was the slider, which he threw 15 times for an 86.67 strike percentage. Sonnanstine used the tremendous amount of movement he gets on his pitches to generate 11 groundball outs compared to only 6 flyball outs.
Sonnanstine is at his best when he's missing low, and tonight he did just that. In his previous start on May 27th at Cleveland, Sonnanstine was missing up and out of the zone and basically didn't throw a single pitch inside to the left handed heavy Indian lineup.
May 27th:
via brooksbaseball.dustinkikuchi.com
Compare that with last night's game:
via brooksbaseball.dustinkikuchi.com
You can see Sonnanstine pitched inside much more to left handed hitters and when he did miss, it was more down in the zone. You can also clearly see seven pitches on that plot that were called balls that were inside the zone, but since Kyle Davies had 10+ of those pitches complaining doesn't work. Tonight, Andy Sonnanstine pitched exactly how Andy Sonnanstine needs to pitch to be successful. Yes, he allowed a couple of home runs, but he didn't walk anyone. He's going to give up home runs; it comes with the territory of not having dominant stuff. When Sonnanstine doesn't allow any free passes and has the control and location that he showed tonight it's easy to see why this organization is so high on him.