How to Hit Daisuke

I took a tour of Josh Kalk's web based pitchf/x tool to get a sense of what to look for from Daisuke.

Here's what I came up with. I thought I had heard that Daisuke was a guy with a big repertoire, five, maybe six pitches, but Josh's tool really shows him as a guy with three pitches, fastball, slider, changeup. There's over 1400 pitches here, and I believe it's all 2007 data.

Daisuke's fastball sits at an average of 93 mph with decent tail in on right handed batters, his slider is thrown at a modest 84-85 mph and breaks away from right handed hitters. The changeup is thrown mostly in hitters counts to RHBs. Only about 10% of his pitches are changeups which looks like a subpar pitch.

first pitch: hitters want to sit on the fastball low and away, he'll throw that about 60% of the time. He'll start it off the plate and try to get it to tail into the strikezone.

hitter's counts: 60% sliders, mostly thrown for strikes so they'll start middle-in and break away.

pitcher's counts: daisuke will waste a fastball 0-2 high or outside, and try to get you to chase a slider outside on 1-2. Daisuke would rather challenge the hitters. 3-2 will be a low fastball.

recommendation: jump on the fastball 0-0 and 3-2, lay off the slider away 1-2, in the hitters counts take the sliders for strikes to get to a 2-2, or 3-2 fastball. Daisuke doesn't want to go 3-2, and doesn't want to walk you.