Seriously tho… wasn’t there some word of him training harder in korea over the offseason… and did anyone do a visual check to see if there’s anything new with his delivery?

I watched Park’s last start against Zito and I thought I was in a time machine. Both pitchers seemed to have found their missing velocity that day. Zito was back up from 84 to 89 and registered 10 Ks on the day and Park was throwing 95 and hitting the corners. I was amazed at the pitching duel that unfolded in front of me when I expected an 8-6 game.

Well, I looked at Park’s numbers as a result and used this site for his velocity readings and came to the same questions/conclusions. Where did this velocity come from? What is going on here?

When I made my post, somebody basically accused me of plagarism, but it was by pure coincidence. I’m glad that I am not the only one that noticed that Park was doing the improbable though. Nice catch. I really thought that I was the only one that might have noticed.

I don’t recall Park’s typical velocity in his pre-Texas days, but it wouldn’t shock me to know that he had screwed up his mechanics and arm in an attempt to overcome the extremely unfavourable Texas envirnoment (for pitchers). Going from the Dodgers (pitcher’s park, usually quite strongly if memory serves) to Texas (a less extreme Coors) could really screw a pitcher up…and trying to throw harder will both lead to injuries and bad mechanics.

And most obviously, he’s been relieving this year. I think of it as the “all-star game effect”, after the place many of us first notice that starters throw a hell of a lot harder when told to go out there and throw 20-40 pitches.