Some observations from Scott Kazmir's debut:
- His heater averaged a kickass 92.5 mph on the night, up from a 90.7 mph on the season with Tampa. That bodes very well for the near-term future.
- Did anyone else notice that Kazmir was able to harness a little extra juice to get himself out of the first inning jam? After loading the bases on fastballs averaging 92.2 mph, he threw a sequence of 12 bullets averaging 94.3 mph to fan Mike Sweeney, Adrian Beltre, and Bill Hall.
- Kaz' average fastball velocity dipped all the way to 90.3 mph in the sixth, hinting that he was running out of gas. It picked up a tick in the 7th- the pitch that Bill Hall whacked off the wall registered 92.9 on the gun - but did fatigue play a role in pitch location despite the fact that Kaz could still put a little extra on it? Look for any drops in velocity beginning in the fifth inning.
- Not one offspeed pitch resulted in a hit. According to fangraphs, Kazmir threw 20% sliders and 11% changeups on the night. According to mlb pitch f/x, the mix was 19%/19% respectively. The confusion, at least as far as sliders/change-ups were concerned, was backed visually: I could not for the life of me distinguish which was which, no matter how many times I watched the same pitch. It could also just be the camera angle, because I've had trouble identifying a lefty's pitch type before on television. Regardless, you can't argue with the results.