Dodgers News: Bobby Miller Knows Where Last Two Starts Went Wrong
After putting the league on notice in his first four starts, Bobby Miller has had his struggles the last two times he’s taken the ball for the Dodgers. Fortunately for Miller and the Dodgers, the 24-year old knows what’s going wrong when he’s giving up runs.
In the first four games of his career, Miller recorded a 0.78 ERA in 23 innings pitched. Since June 10th when he went seven shutout innings in Philadelphia, Miller’s ERA has jumped to 4.13.
Thanks to a 7 run performance against San Fransisco last week and giving up 6 runs to the Astros on Saturday, Miller is going through his first slump of his big league career.
Luckily for Miller, he is realizing how his pitch selection is leading to his struggles and knows how to turn it around. The rookie spoke to the Orange County Register about it.
“I started off with a a ton of fastballs, a lot of fastballs out there. So maybe it wasn’t effective later in the game as it could have been because I gave them a really heavy dose of fastballs early in the game,” Miller said. “I probably could have mixed it better the whole entire game instead of waiting until the end to start mixing it, you know, mix it the whole time, which protects my fastball a little more so it gets on them a little more.”
Via Orange County Register
Miller’s high usage of his fastball relates to the velocity he gets on the pitch. He throws the hardest fastball of any starter in baseball at 99.4 MPH on average.
If Miller could mix in more of his sliders, changeups and curveballs more often he’s going to be more successful as he gets deeper into opposing team’s lineups. Manager Dave Roberts also knows that pitch selection was the downfall to the rookie’s starts the past two times he’s been out there.
“He just kind of forgot about secondary pitches and they were putting the ball in play, and you got to tip your hat to those guys in that situation,” said Roberts.
Via Orange County Register
Miller will have more time in the major leagues to figure out his problems. With Julio Urias returning from the IL soon, Roberts has said that Miller will keep his spot in the rotation going forward.
