The following information was gathered from Brett Anderson's April 10th, 2009 start against the Seattle Mariners. I watched the game live from The Oakland Coliseum, gathered Pitch F/X data for it, then watched it on CSN California. The velocities below are from Pitch F/X, as the Comcast radar gun missed a lot of Anderson's pitches and was clearly juiced -- +2 MPH on average.
The Basics:
Fastball...88-92 and touched 93-94 eight times -- thrown 59.5% of the time. Anderson appeared to be working off a 4-seam fastball primarily in the first two innings (92-94 MPH; 92 average) and a 2-seam fastball for the next four innings (88-91; 90) -- combined for a 91 MPH average. His fastball doesn't have near the movement of Rick Porcello's, but it's still at least an average pitch because it's coming from the left side and he attacks the strike zone well with it.
Mike Sweeney (deep flyout to left in the 1st inning [93 MPH]; single off the LF wall in the 6th [88 MPH]) and Yuniesky Betancourt (double off the left field wall in the 2nd [93 MPH]) both squared up well on Anderson's fastball. He only generated one swing-through with the pitch (2%) -- two if you count Kenji Johjima's check swing in the 4th. He got Branyan to strike out on a 93 MPH fastball (2-2 count) in the 4th inning.
Slider...81-84 and thrown 22.6% of the time (83 MPH average). He mostly threw his slider for strikes -- 57.9% of the time to be more precise -- and generated two swing-throughs with the pitch (10.5%). The last pitch he threw to five hitters was a slider, leading to a groundout, two singles, one flyout, and a strikeout, respectively. In this outing, I didn't see the pitch as more than slightly above-average. It moved fairly well but it didn't break enough to really keep hitter's off-balance.
Changeup...82-84 and thrown 10.7% of the time (83 MPH average). I thought the movement on Anderson's changeup was very similar to his fastball. When I watched the game live, I didn't notice a significant difference between his fastball and changeup arm action. Seven of the nine changeups he threw wound up being strikes (77.8%).
Franklin Gutierrez grounded into a double-play in the second on a changeup. Sweeney grounded to third on a changeup in the third inning. Though the pitch didn't move a ton, it was about eight MPH slower than his fastball and looked similar. Also, it was the same speed as many of his sliders.
Curveball(s)...74-84 and thrown 7.1% of the time (79 MPH average). I'm pretty sure that Anderson was throwing two curveballs. One was similar to his slider but with a little more movement -- similar speed, too. The other was an easily distinguishable sharp, downward-moving pitch. Because he used the pitch so infrequently (once in the 3rd inning, once in the 4th, and four times in the 6th), it was difficult to tell how effective it was. Jose Lopez was the only hitter to put it in play (fly out in the 6th).
Box Score Breakdown
Anderson's final line was: 6.0 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 2 K. He gave up six singles and a double. Fifty of the 84 pitches he threw were strikes (59.5%). He induced 10 groundouts and six flyouts. Both of Anderson's walks were to Ken Griffey Jr. -- this first one is embedded below.
Overall Opinion
Overall, Anderson wasn't really fooling many hitters. He only got three swing-throughs all evening. And Seattle's offense probably is going to be below-average this season -- they ranked 26th in total bases last season. Also note that Anderson didn't have to face Ichiro Suzuki in this outing.
On the bright side, Anderson only had one bad inning, as he allowed all five of his earned runs in the second inning. Two of the four hits that he gave up that inning were broken-bat singles. But Adrian Beltre, who led off the inning, flew out to the warning track.
Equipped with a six offerings (4-seam FB, 2-seam FB, slider, changeup, curveball 1, and curveball 2), Anderson threw strikes with each of his pitches and had some very efficient innings -- 7 pitches in the first, 9 in the 3rd, 13 in the 4th, and 12 in the 5th. He's probably going to have some ugly outings this season, but after watching his first start, I'm convinced that Anderson belongs in the big leagues.
We plan to post Scouting Reports regularly this season. Adam Foster can be reached at adamf@projectprospect.com.