Maholm Drops Down To Snatch His First Victory, Pirates First Home Series
By Tom Smith
Paul Maholm
allowed two earned runs in the first. He then shut it down. The Bucs offense got four runs for him matching their previous run support total for Maholm. The left hander racked up eight strikeouts, while allowing just four hits and two walks. At one point, Maholm retired 13 straight Nationals batters.
Pile up those innings lefty.
In the Extra Innings show, Maholm confirmed what our eyes saw during the stream. Maholm said he threw from different arm angles. Something he normally has done as we show below thanks to the charts from Brooks Baseball. But take a close look, it seemed a bit more habitual than normal. [ I admit I was keeping an eye on the Penguins game.] So whatever Maholm did last night, he should study the tape and repeat it.
Check out the Pitch f/x from Brooks Baseball:
And against the Marlins in his last start:
Now, just for giggles the detailed corrected spin format:
Just for giggles, a look at it against the Marlins:
Need a refresher on Pitch f/x? We like this one:
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Maholm threw 99 pitches last night with 63 for strikes. We especially enjoyed his effective fifth when he threw 16 pitches, but 13 were for strikes. The Nats helped him cruise through the seventh with eight pitches, six were strikes. In his last start against the Fish, Maholm threw 76 pitches with some serious pitch counts: ten in the first, 23 in the second, 16 in the third, and 27 in the fourth.
Brandon Wood provided the timely offense after a brief rain delay. His two-run double….. Unreal. Huge.
Evan Meek cruised in the eighth.
Joel Hanrahan heated it up. Damn.
Hanrahan gave up a leadoff walk to Jayson Werth which seemed like it might be trouble. But the right hander got a flyball and a strikeout, but then allowed a Ramos single which put Nats on the corner. Rick Ankiel came up as a pinch hitter, but Hanranator got the all too important first strike. Ankiel was meat, eventually looking at a huge fastball at the knees to end the game.
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Peter Gammons on getting Wood……
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