Maestro Martinez Mixes Way to Success

In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down the playoffs from a scouting perspective.

The approach was there, the execution was there, but Pedro Martinez's stuff was just short of allowing him to completely shut down the New York Yankees. All in all, the Phillies have to be more than pleased with just a few runs in six innings for their veteran right-hander. At least for a little while, he had the Yankees eating out of the palm of his hand.

It can't be said enough: The best way to stop New York's lineup is often by allowing their patient approach to work against them. Martinez has the type of command and moxie to pull off such an approach. By letting Martinez consistently get ahead 0-1 and 0-2, you give him multiple pitches to play with and different ways of getting you out.

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Obviously, the plan against an older pitcher like Martinez, with questions about his stamina, is to take pitches and build up a pitch count. But that plan may have really worked against the Yankee hitters early in the ballgame. He likes to get ahead quickly with the first pitch, and frequently that first pitch is not his sharpest. Up in the count, Martinez's offerings tends to get nastier. What he was able to do was get ahead with off-speed pitches and finish with his fastball later in the count. That is how he's able to compensate for his decreased velocity. Following several off-speed offerings, that 88-mph fastball suddenly looks much quicker.

In six-plus innings of work, Pedro faced 26 hitters. Of those 26, 17 of them saw first-pitch off-speed pitches. More specifically, 12 of them saw changeups. Especially in the early innings, New York was caught looking at most of these pitches, and giving a free strike to a pitcher like Pedro only makes him more effective. Long counts may run up his pitch count, but what makes him different than most pitchers is that extended at-bats can work in his favor because he's just that unpredictable.

In a three-ball count, the hitter may see a changeup or breaking ball just as easily as he could see a fastball. This guessing game Pedro makes a hitter play is the reason he's an all-time great.

At this stage in his career, though, attacking him early in the count allows you to eliminate a large part of that guessing game. To their credit, the Yankees made that adjustment later in the game. When Derek Jeter doubled and Mark Teixeira homered off of Martinez, both swung at the first strike they saw. Both also hit off-speed pitches. The Phils right-hander gets by at this point in his career by being a master of mixing his pitches, but early in the count he is far less baffling.

If Martinez still possessed the mid-90s fastball he once had, this of course could have been a far different night. He survived for most of Game 2 with one pattern. He pitched backwards and was able to finish some hitters with the fastball. It was clear he was not going to offer many fastballs early in the count, and for much of the game that approach held New York down. But, at some point, a lineup full of experienced hitters is going to adjust, and that's exactly what the Yankees did.

Spotlight Moment

It looked for a few innings at least that Pedro Martinez shutting down the powerful Yankee lineup might be the story of Game 2. But as things moved along, and A.J. Burnett got sharper and sharper, it was clear who was setting the pace for the game. This was a glimpse of a pitcher that can be as dominant as any man in baseball when his mechanics are in order.

The best showcase of just how sharp he was came in his battles with Ryan Howard. When Burnett is even the least bit off mechanically, his front shoulder opens, the elbow drops and he has trouble getting on top of his plus curveball. On this night, there were no such issues. It was also very clear how confident he was going inside with his fastball. When he's going badly, he can get into trouble as the fastball leaks back toward the middle against lefties, and against a hitter like Howard, you had better be sure you don't miss over the inner half.

It was evident from the first pitch to Howard, as he threaded the inside corner with a 95-mph fastball, that Burnett was very comfortable going in there. And, what that did was open up the outside corner for the back door breaking ball that gave the Philadelphia slugger fits all night. This was an A.J. Burnett with everything working, and as was the case with Cliff Lee in Game 1, there was little the opposing offense could have done to stop him.

Frankie Piliere spent the last three seasons working as a scout, most recently in the professional scouting department for the Texas Rangers in 2009. He now serves as the National Baseball Analyst here at FanHouse.