Ryan Bergert Didn't Stand Out In First Start For Padres, But His Pitch Usage Did

[Randy Holt]

Regardless of the outcome on a given night, the specter of an absence of depth continues to loom over the San Diego Padres. It's a narrative we're more accustomed to in matters of position players, but it's begun to manifest with more frequency on the bump. Still without Yu Darvish and now without Michael King, the Padres have been forced to get a little bit creative with their starting pitching. 

It's that creativity that forced Ryan Bergert to the mound in San Francisco on Tuesday night. 

Already rolling with a rotation that has featured six (mostly effective) starts from Stephen Kolek, another recent dud from Kyle Hart, and a Sean Reynolds starting cameo, Bergert was named the starter for Tuesday ahead of time by Mike Shildt. He didn't disappoint. 

Of course, it wasn't the first we'd seen of Bergert this year. He'd made four clean appearances in relief for the team, totaling four innings with a pair of strikeouts, one hit, and one walk. Solid, unspectacular stuff. There's a funny thing about "solid, unspectacular" in baseball: it generally gets the job done. And while Bergert left without a result sitting in his favor, that solid, unspectacular outing put his team in a position to win. 

Bergert threw five innings, struck out two, walked two, and allowed six hits. One of those hits was a 107 MPH shot off the bat of Heliot Ramos that landed over the center field wall (and was a homer in 28 out of 30 ballparks). That it came with a man on didn't help, but it landed as the only blemish on an otherwise strong starting debut for Bergert. 

What's more notable than the outcome, though, is the usage we saw. In his four relief appearances, Bergert was fastball-heavy, throwing his four-seam fastball 68.6 percent of the time. The slider served as his secondary offering (21.6 percent), with a sinker and changeup combining for five pitches total across those four innings. Tuesday showed us something entirely different: 

Bergert threw his four-seam 41 percent of the time. No surprise there. But the cutter chimed in a third of the time (accounting for 27 of his raw pitch count), with the slider checking in at only 14 percent (12 thrown in total). The sinker was thrown 10 percent of the time, and a changeup wasn't documented at all. 

So did Bergert suddenly bring a cutter to the table while not throwing a single one in any of his relief appearances? Not quite. This excerpt from his MLB Pipeline scouting report stands out: 

Quote

"The 6-foot-1 hurler’s standout offerings are his pair of sliders – an 81-83 mph sweeper that can exceed 2,900 rpm and a tighter, mid-80s breaker."

Baseball Savant had the cutter coming in at 2,625 RPM of spin and the slider at 2,677, on average. The cutter garnered 31 inches of vertical break while the slider offered 37. Given that information, the "slider" indicated by Savant is likely the first pitch noted in the excerpt, and the cutter is the second. It's also worth noting that four of Bergert's eight total whiffs on the evening came via the pitch classified as a cutter. 

Ultimately, the previous usage probably wasn't distinguishing the two pitches in a smaller sample. However, out of a starting roll, it gave a larger sample with which to work and allowed for differentiation to take place. That changeup we saw in relief could be viable down the line, though, especially as he was forced to go with a four-seam majority against left-handed hitters. 

Regardless of the usage clarification, Bergert's start against a middle-of-the-pack Giants squad was an important step. That's a contending team in the same division against which you need to stack wins. Bergert left down 2-0, but kept the team within striking distance so that they could work their two-out magic in the ninth inning. Until they nail down more certainty in the rotation, this type of solid, unspectacular work is exactly what the Padres need when you consider what's waiting in the bullpen.

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