The first two pitches by Robert Stephenson against the Cardinals last night showed something that we all hoped we could see more frequently. The first pitch was a fastball at the knees, on the black, outside corner. The next pitch was a splitter that started out at the exact same spot, but dropped off and faded from the strikezone late, generating a really bad swing-and-miss.
The at-bat would eventually end in a strikeout and start a 1-2-3 inning. In the 2nd inning he walked a batter on four pitches, but got the other three batters out in the inning without issue. The next inning started out with another strikeout and a line out before a solo home run broke his shutout and cut the Cincinnati Reds lead in half.
It was the 4th inning that really got out of control. A soft line drive, but a legit base hit, started out the inning. The next batter struck out, but the following one hit a hard grounder up the middle that would have been playable, but took a hop off of the mound that led to an infield single. The following batter hit a blooper into no-mans-land just falling between Adam Duvall and Eugenio Suarez and it loaded the bases with no outs, when with just a slightly different bounce off of the mound and a blooper being two feet closer to the foul line the inning would have been over.
Robert Stephenson made the pitches up to that point, but the results hadn’t worked out in that inning. The next batter was Aledmys Diaz, and unfortunately Stephenson left a pitch down the middle of the plate and Diaz didn’t miss it and smacked a grand slam. One bad pitch coming after some bad luck on balls in play and what had been a good start was ruined.
The next two batters made outs and the inning was over, but the damage had been done and Robert Stephenson didn’t return to the game the following inning. He lasted just four innings and was charged with five runs. The stat line doesn’t tell you how the game went, for the most part. He threw strikes, walking just one batter and striking out four hitters. One bad pitch that followed some bad luck and it changed the entire game.