Why Oakland Athletics’ Sonny Gray Stays In Games
On June 19th, the Oakland Athletics suffered one of the most demoralizing losses of their season. They took a 7-2 lead into the seventh inning against the Los Angeles Angels. Sonny Gray looked sharp, and Bob Melvin decided he was going to stick with his ace in the later innings.
A’s Twitter certainly reacted when Gray walked the first two batters. With two on and nobody out, what in the world was Melvin thinking by leaving his starter in there?
Then Matt Joyce singled and drove in a run. The A’s had arms warm in the bullpen, but Melvin was still hesitant to make the switch.
Then Chris Iannetta loaded the bases with a base hit. It was only then, when the inning was on the brink of disaster, that the skipper made his move.
Melvin was not treated kindly by A’s fans on social media for waiting so long to go to the bullpen. Tweets from frustrated fans that day asked why Melvin would leave Gray out to dry in that situation, and pleaded that he never let a starter pitch himself into that situation again. So what motivated Melvin to leave his starter in for so long?
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The answer is that Sonny Gray defies everything the baseball world knows about pitching. Logically, pitchers typically get weaker the more times they face a lineup. That is not the case for Gray. Statistically, Gray’s best stuff is saved for the final time through the lineup, and there is no way that Melvin has not noticed.
Nothing demonstrates this more convincingly than the chart below:
Sonny Gray’s pitching stats split by number of times through the lineup. Credit: Baseball-Reference
Notice that there is an incredibly steady and consistent downward trend in BA, OBP, SLG, and OPS from top to bottom. The top row represents Sonny Gray’s career performance when pitching to a lineup for the first time, and each row beneath it represents the next time through the lineup. Between the first and fourth times through the lineup, opposing AVG falls by .061, OBP by .070, and OPS by an astonishing .207.
This doesn’t apply only to the number of times through the lineup. The chart below shows the same trend for Gray’s performance by number of pitches thrown.
Sonny Gray’s pitching stats split by number of pitches thrown. Credit: Baseball-Reference
The top row represents Gray’s performance between 1-24 pitches, the bottom row represents pitches 76-100, and the middle two rows cover everything in between. What is even more noteworthy in this chart is that his strikeout-to-walk ratio is strongest when pitching late in games. At the point of the game where most pitchers will struggle with control, Gray is throwing his most accurate pitches.
Gray doesn’t just get better as the game goes on, he gets a lot better.
This is why A’s fans need to forgive the first-inning runs that Gray gives up, such as two of the three he gave up against the Yankees yesterday. This is why A’s fans need to understand why Melvin is hesitant to take him out of games, especially in scenarios where the bullpen would relieve any other pitcher not named Sonny Gray.
Josh Reddick (now famously) said that there are so many numbers that the front office can pull up to keep somebody out of the lineup. These are the numbers that keep Gray on the mound, even in the face of adversity.
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