Mike Mussina's heater: like an angry poodle, it doesn't have much bite, but it's got more bite than you think.
I got into an argument today regarding the Moose's pitching abilities, and his velocity kept coming up. The opposing side assured me that an 85 MPH fastball could not survive in the pitcher-unfriendly American League East. While that makes a lot of sense, there's a
great article over at the Hardball Times that assures us good citizens that the velocity of a fastball is overhyped; statistically speaking, from the samples provided, an 86 MPH fastball and a 96 MPH fastball, righty on righty to the outside part of the plate, has no significant difference. Honestly, that kind of blew my mind.
The opposition assured me that this was not an 86 MPH fastball that we were dealing with, but an 80 MPH fastball. (Mussina must be losing velocity quickly if he dropped 5 MPH between his responses.) At any rate, I looked up his PITCHf/x data, and it turns out that
Mussina's fastballs are averaging to be 86.36 MPH so far this season. Most people have been saying he's sitting 84-86 -- but he's
averaging the
high end of that assertion! He hit 87 MPH in the first inning of his last start (the Manny Ramirez Home Run-a-Thon); I didn't get a chance to look much beyond that, but suffice to say averaging at 86 MPH means he's topping over it at least as much as he's pitching below it.
His velocity still isn't great, but it's better than you haters say. Furthermore, when he's not facing the most potent offense in the AL in two consecutive starts, he's done pretty well. After Round #1 against the Sox, he was sporting a 4.15 ERA. Considering the definition of a quality start is 6 IP, 3 ER (4.50 ERA), I'll take that from my alleged fifth starter.
C'mon, folks. The Cy Young Award winner has an ERA at least twice as big as Moose's after he's faced off against Beckett twice and Burnett once.
