Everyone loves a starting — the christening of a brand new battleship, the start of a brand new zoo giraffe, the foremost league debut of a high pitching prospect. On Tuesday night time in Philadelphia, San Francisco Giants lefty Kyle Harrison emerged from his pupal stage. It went… fairly nicely: 3 1/3 innings, two earned runs, 5 hits, one stroll, 5 strikeouts, one hit batter.
In a brief begin, Harrison pared his repertoire right down to — with only a few exceptions — simply his fastball and slider. He gave up plenty of exhausting contact, together with a house run, but in addition, stated supervisor Gabe Kapler, Harrison “missed a lot of bats. He missed bats in the zone. His fastball was carrying.”
Harrison entered the night time as the no. 17 total prospect on The Board, and the no. 5 total pitching prospect. Every crew within the playoff hunt may use a contemporary, proficient starter, the Giants extra so than simply about anybody. San Francisco is working a rotation out of the mid-Twentieth century: Two superb beginning pitchers after which numerous improvisation. Webb, Cobb, and pray for fog. Or one thing like that. If you are able to do higher than a slant rhyme, I’m all ears.
When Harrison took the mound, the Giants had had a pitcher throw 80 or extra pitches in a recreation simply 67 instances this season, the bottom mark in baseball by far. (The Astros, who lead the league on this extremely particular class, had 121.) Just the night time earlier than, the Giants had used an opener, Scott Alexander, in a pivotal recreation towards the Phillies, a direct Wild Card rival, and Aaron Nola. Alexander and bulk relievers Sean Manaea and Sean Hjelle conspired to permit 10 earned runs, and so Harrison’s job was to stability the ledger.
Harrison saved the Giants within the recreation, departing with a one-run deficit that the Giants got here inside two outs of changing right into a one-run win earlier than blowing the lead within the backside of the ninth.
At 6-foot-2, 200 kilos, Harrison is greater than your common man off the road however small for a serious league starter. He doesn’t have a stereotypical long-limbed pitcher’s physique; I’d name him compact, with a strong decrease half. He has a particular supply; his windup begins with an extended pause, a few full second, in a leaning posture that nearly appears like a reversed nonetheless picture of Tim Lincecum. Harrison then brings his arm again and down in a stabbing movement earlier than swinging round to the left for a low launch level.
As for what comes out of Harrison’s hand then: a fastball that usually sits within the 93-94 mph vary, which isn’t spectacular at the moment, even for a left-handed starter. (Harrison was capable of crack 97 a pair instances, significantly within the first inning when his adrenaline was absolutely peaking. By the time Gabe Kapler got here to get the rookie with one out within the fourth, Harrison’s fastball had dropped into the 92s.) But this pitch is why Harrison was capable of strike out half — sure, precisely half — of the 118 batters he confronted in High-A and 36.4% of the batters he confronted in Double-A final 12 months.
It was largely efficient towards massive league hitters as nicely; Harrison threw 47 heaters in his debut and acquired 11 whiffs on 23 swings.
“It wasn’t just major league hitters — really good, right-handed major league hitters that he was throwing the ball by,” Kapler stated. “I’ve seen J.T. [Realmuto] a lot, and he can certainly catch up to a fastball. He threw the ball by J.T. a couple of times. He threw the ball by Trea [Turner] a couple times, threw it by [Nick] Castellanos a couple times. Those are some elite right-handed hitters, particularly against left-handed pitching, and you just don’t see it very often.”
Because Harrison’s fastball comes from an odd, low arm slot, it has depraved rise and arm-side motion, and it brought on apparent issues when he may find it.
“You get a low three-quarter release, which creates an [odd] approach angle,” catcher Patrick Bailey stated after the sport. “He’s getting two-plane break, vertical and horizontal. Probably the most comparable is like a Josh Hader.”
Hitting this fastball should be like attempting to fend off an offended bee with a rolled-up journal, significantly when Harrison can throw strikes low within the zone early within the depend, then put a little bit additional on a fastball at collar-level for strike three. See a few of the swings Harrison pressured Phillies hitters into, and it’ll turn out to be clear why this child was hanging out greater than a 3rd of his minor league opponents.
The greatest punch out of the bunch was a three-pitch strikeout of Castellanos, the third Phillies hitter of the sport: a slider on the within nook for strike one, a fastball to climb the ladder for strike two, then a second fastball nearly middle-middle that nonetheless froze Castellanos for a known as strike three.
I used to be attempting to consider a low-to-mid-90s fastball that will get on hitters the way in which Harrison’s does, and I got here up with one other fastball-slider man: Cristian Javier. It’s a horrible comp, as a result of the whole lot from windup to pitch form to throwing hand is totally different about these two, however the impact on hitters is analogous.
The slider, a low-80s providing with massive lateral break, was an honest complement to the fastball, however an imperfect one. Because it strikes side-to-side as an alternative of down, Harrison doesn’t get probably the most out of the 10-15 mph velocity differential when he pulls the string. Almost precisely a 12 months in the past, David Laurila chatted with Harrison concerning the younger lefty’s repertoire; Harrison stopped in need of calling his breaking ball a sweeper, maybe as a result of the time period has solely come into vogue since then. Statcast marked it as a slurve, which it undoubtedly appears like, even when that classification is retro these days. For his half, Harrison reiterated after the sport that he calls it a slider, it doesn’t matter what the analytics say.
Two pitches after Harrison took Castellanos’ lunch cash, he dragged a breaking ball proper into Harper’s bat path. The ensuing two-run house run constituted the whole lot of the scoring towards Harrison in his debut.
“It could’ve been down, but in a 1-0 count I’m trying to back into it, get a strike,” Harrison says. “But he’s a good hitter. I gave it a little too much up in the zone.”
But Harrison’s slider may be efficient when he will get on high of it: it produced one Johan Rojas swing so ugly I heard the man behind me within the press field mutter, “Jesus Christ!”
The different knock on Harrison is his command, and true to type, that was a little bit of a combined bag in his debut. Harrison threw 43 strikes on 65 pitches and dotted the corners at instances, however he additionally walked a batter, hit a batter, and left a number of fastballs over the plate. Lucky for him, the pitch strikes a lot that when hitters did swing, usually as not it was a probing effort, like searching for batteries within the junk drawer.
When the Phillies may get bat to ball, Harrison suffered. Eight of the 16 batters he confronted put a ball in play; all eight of these balls had exit velocities over 91 mph, and 5 of them went out at over 98 mph. Three of Harrison’s 5 hits allowed went for additional bases. Harper appeared to have him dialed in fairly simply, including a single to his first-inning house run. So did Bryson Stott, who crushed two exhausting line drives for base hits in his two plate appearances off Harrison. In truth, all 5 hits got here off the bats of left-handed hitters, a incontrovertible fact that Kapler dismissed as happenstance, although Harrison admitted that lefties had been giving him hassle his previous couple of minor league begins.
The consequence: Lots of site visitors on the bases. Harrison allowed two runs within the first, left the bases loaded when Trea Turner lined out to heart to finish the second, then picked Harper off to finish the third earlier than leaving with Stott on first within the fourth.
It was unlikely that Harrison was ever going to go a lot additional into the sport. In addition to the Giants’ normal propensity for brief outings, Harrison has been saved on a light-weight workload within the minors. In 21 begins, he’s had simply 4 selections and one win, as a result of he’s solely accomplished 5 innings as soon as this season; his 65-pitch massive league debut was his longest outing since June. (Harrison additionally spent a few month on the sidelines whereas recovering from a hamstring harm earlier than returning to minor league motion in early August.) Kapler stated he’d had Harrison scheduled for between 60 and 65 pitches, and that’s precisely how lengthy Harrison went.
This outing was additionally fastball-heavy; Harrison used the slider a little bit greater than half as regularly as he had in current minor league begins, and we noticed his changeup simply twice all night time, and solely within the second time by way of the order. At one level within the backside of the second, Harrison threw 11 fastballs in a row.
“That was the plan, just filling up the zone early, and trying the best as I can to get ahead,” Harrison says. “Just trusting in Patty back there and trusting what he’s putting down.”
Kapler neither confirmed nor dominated out that Harrison would begin once more in 5 days. Harrison wouldn’t clear up all of San Francisco’s issues; he’s nonetheless a little bit uncooked, and given his workload so far, it’s an extended shot he’d be capable of flip over a lineup greater than twice. But no Giants starter, maybe not even Webb and Cobb, can miss bats like Harrison, and that’s one thing they’ll want down the stretch.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com