Chris Davis Scouting Report
Baltimore’s Chris Davis made his major-league pitching debut against Boston on Sunday, earning the win with two innings of scoreless work while striking out two, walking one, and allowing two hits (box).
For the benefit of both (a) our readers and (b) baseball’s various advance scouting departments, we present this entirely complete and infallible scouting report on Chris Davis, right-handed pitcher.
Role: Late, Late Inning Reliever
When you talk about Chris Davis, you’re not talking about a starting pitcher or middle reliever or set-up guy or closer; you’re talking about a guy who’s gonna get the job done in, like, the 16th and 17th inning. He has a career average leverage index of 2.35 — considerably better than second-place Brian Wilson’s career 2.07 mark. Words like “gamer” and “clutch” are insufficient: you need to translate them into German and then back into English to fully characterize Davis’s mound temperament.
Stuff: Unclassifiable
What does Davis throw, exactly? Don’t ask PITCHf/x:
Match-Ups: Former Texas Rangers Prospects
As he exhibited Sunday, dismissing both Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Adrian Gonzalez, Davis is particularly effective at striking out former Texas Rangers prospects. So, like, if Hank Blalock ever comes back, he probably won’t do shit against Chris Davis.
Video Footage
Here’s Davis striking out Saltalamacchia
And doing the same to Gonzalez:
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
the pitch that struck out Adrian Gonzalez definitely looks like some sort of spilt finger
He is gripping the ball like a four seam fastball but his arm slot gives him that good sinking action.
no, its a split finger
According to Davis it was a split finger to Salty and the pitch to AGon was just a fastball he took some off of.