The Goddamn Drinking Bird

Mike Mussina got shelled against the Texas Rangers the other night, giving up 7 runs and 11 hits in only 3 innings. Most embarrassingly, Mussina tied a major-league record by allowing six doubles in one inning. A guy could get whiplash watching all of those balls fly over his head.

The Rangers appear to have Moose’s number; he’s allowed them 18 runs in 13 innings over three starts in pinstripes. In fact a year ago Friday, I ditched work to catch a day game, only to watch Mussina get rocked by Texas before I’d even broken a sweat.

The Rangers won’t be around in October, but they’re not Mussina’s only problem. He hasn’t been nearly the same pitcher this year as he was last season, when he outpitched teammate Roger Clemens, whose gaudy 20-3 record netted an unprecedented 6th Cy Young Award. Mussina’s ERA was 0.36 runs lower (3.15 to Clemens’ 3.51), he showed drastically better control (5.09 K/W ratio for Moose vs. 2.96 for Rocket) and he allowed significantly fewer baserunners per inning (1.07 vs 1.26). But Clemens got the better run support, and ended up with the better record and the hardware.

Run support anomalies tend to even out over time, and this year Moose has gotten his share, enabling him to a 13-5 record, compared to 17-11 last year. But Moose’s ERA is 1.68 runs higher this season than last, and only 12 out of 22 starts have been Quality Starts (3 earned runs in 6 innings or better). Five of those non-Quality Starts qualify as Disaster Starts (a term coined by ESPN’s Jim Baker meaning those in which the pitcher allows as many or more runs than innings pitched). Interestingly enough, in 34 starts last year, Moose posted the same totals of non-Quality and Disaster Starts, 10 and 5 respectively.

So his hits per inning are up (9.07 per 9 IP vs. 7.95 last year), his strikeouts are down (7.04 vs 8.42), and he’s already allowed more homers than he did last year (1.37 per 9 IP vs. 0.79 per 9 last season. Just what the hell is going on?

Anyone who’s watched Mussina pitch knows that he has one of the more, um, distinctive stretch moves in the game. At the beginning of his windup, he bows like an overly servile butler. Or as I’m prone to calling it after a couple of beers, a Goddamn Drinking Bird, after that novelty-store staple. Mussina’s move looks ridiculous, and I don’t see how he can generate any power with it. While he’s obviously had success with it in the past, anybody examing his mechanics would surmise that he’s wasting a lot of energy and losing his power there.

Actually, I think I’m onto something. Here are OPS (On Base Percentage + Slugging Percentage) breakdowns for the Yankee starters, with no runners on (0), runners on (1+), and runners in scoring position (RISP).

            0    1+  RISP

Clemens   588  772  763

Hernandez 570  656  679

Lilly     696  611  554 (incl. 2 OAK starts)

Mussina   648  893  930

Pettitte  711  776  714

Wells     682  714  697

Moose’s OPS with runners on or in scoring position are 117 points higher than any other splits here, and they’re the only ones above 800. His splits last year aren’t quite as drastic (590 OPS with none on, 707 with runners on, 767 with runners in scoring position), so maybe this is a just random blip.

Whatever the reason, Mussina hasn’t pitched well with runners on base. If I were Yankee pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, I’d check video of his pitching from the stretch this season versus last. And I’d suggest Mussina kill that Goddamn Drinking Bird.