Atlanta Braves: Matt Wisler Wednesday Start Review

To continue the series on Braves pitchers, I watched Wednesday’s start of Matt Wisler for AAA Gwinnett. His box score line for the start is definitely uninspiring – 4 1/3 innings pitched, nine hits allowed, two walks, four strikeouts and seven (!!) runs allowed, all earned. So why would I write up this start? Keep reading, as I think you’ll find that perhaps the numbers don’t always tell the whole story…

First inning

Very nice start with Ben Gamel, but a Jose Peraza error put him at first base after getting a perfect grounder with a sinker. Came back very well against Ramon Flores and got a short pop out.

Wisler seems to have a lot of success going up in the zone, likely due to staying so low in the zone in general. Wisler’s location on the edges of the plate was just a touch off in the early going, leading to some balls on very close pitches.

Rob Refsnyder drew a walk on an at bat where two of the pitches were just a touch off of what could have been called a strike, and when you work low in the zone, location becomes even more important. Had a ball definitely in the zone not get called a strike against Kyle Roller and proceeded to miss badly with his next two pitches, which is something he can’t do at the next level.

He came back from that to strike out Roller on two swings at tailing pitches away from the lefty. He then got Tyler Austin to ground out on the second pitch of the at bat to get out of the inning and strand two runners.

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Second inning

Cole Figueroa slapped a sinker to first for a quick groundout to start the inning. Austin Romine came up swinging hard, barely missing one and then driving a ball right over Joe Benson, who was positioned poorly in left field on the play (he was in and toward the line, and standard positioning would have made it an easy catch), for a double.

Wisler definitely loses a little bit of his angle and drive in his body when he’s in the stretch, but he also gets a lot more sink out of the stretch, so less power and more sink is an okay trade off for more pitchers.

He pounded Jonathan Galvez low and then got him looking on a waist-high outside fastball. Wisler made a very nice pitch that Nick Noonan blooped into left. Benson attempted to catch the ball, and the ball got by Benson, leading to a run-scoring double. Braeden Schlehuber had a lazy reception of the ball in the dirt and it bounced off his shin guard, allowing Noonan to move to third. Gamel took the next pitch to left-center field for a run-scoring triple on a hanging sinker. Another completely mishandled ball by Benson led to a run-scoring double for Flores.

Wisler, to his credit, continued to attack hitters and trust his defense, as a sinker ball pitcher has to do. He hung a pitch to Refsnyder that Benson finally pulled in for the third out.

Third inning

Wisler made some nice pitches to Roller, but the big first baseman golfed a low pitch into the gap in left-center for a double. Wisler again kept attacking, going right at Austin after the Roller double.

Wisler’s sinking action certainly has more bite out of the stretch, but he doesn’t have the same velocity. I’m also not a fan of the way his arm drags from the stretch, whereas his windup has very good arm motion.

Austin took a ball nearly on the plate and took it into left field for a single. While Wisler is attacking hitters, his pitches were often finishing right in the middle of the plate, and nearly every hitter out there can square up a ball in the middle of the plate, which is why the blacks of the plate is where most pitchers try to live.

That said, Wisler wasn’t getting those calls early and continued to miss them with Austin and Figueroa on a couple of pitches outside. Figueroa floated what should have been a good sacrifice fly ball to center, but the Braves played heads-up defense, and they got Roller for leaving too soon from third base for the double play. Wisler attacked Romine after the double play, getting Romine to foul out to right field for the third out.

Fourth inning

Wisler came out in the fourth inning against Galvez attacking the low-middle of the zone before getting him to strike out looking with a well placed fastball on the outside corner. He missed low and outside twice to Noonan before coming back with a solid pitch on the outside corner before getting Noonan to fly out to center field. Gamel came out swinging at the first pitch and flew out to center.

Excellent quick inning.

Fifth inning

Wisler back came out to the mound after a long offensive inning where the Braves scored two runs, but took nearly a half hour to do so. Wisler threw well against Flores on his first pitches of the at bat, but left a sinker with too much of the plate, and Flores singled it up the middle. He went back to attacking the corners against Refsnyder hit a long drive to right that Eury Perez got turned around on and had to play off the wall after he over-ran the ball off the bat. That put runners at 2nd and 3rd.

Wisler attacked the corners against Roller again, but wasn’t getting the calls, going to 3-0 before walking Roller on 5 pitches. With the bases loaded and none out, Wisler came back to attack Austin in on his hands for strike one before missing inside. He went outside and Austin hit a ball into the stands near the right field foul pole before going back inside for another foul ball. Austin checked his swing on a low sinker for ball two. Austin then fouled off an inside fastball before striking out on high heat for the first out.

Figueroa came up swinging and scorched an inside fastball down the right field line and drove in two on a double down the line.

Wisler was pulled at that point, but his two he left on base were allowed in by the bullpen.

Matt Wisler Review: Overall

Wisler has a very easy and effortless motion, which is why it’s easy to like the guy because it’s hard to see an easy motion like that struggle with injury, though we’ve known plenty of pitchers have had good motion/delivery that were injured.

I would say that Wisler could use some strength building as his frame is considerably lean, and as long as he keeps throwing through the strength building, he could add the muscle without losing any arm flexibility. Wisler did exactly as I’d want a sinker ball pitcher to do, which is throw to the bats, make the guys hit it to your players, keep the ball in the park, and rely on your defense.

Sadly, his defense let him down tonight from the first batter forward, and while he was tagged with 7 earned runs on the night, I would personally have given at least 2 errors on the night in the outfield, with a third being out there for a particularly rude scorekeeper, but the home scorekeeper was generous to the position players and not Wisler on this night, only charging Peraza in the first inning with an error.

His bullpen then couldn’t pick him up, and let in the two runners he had on base when he was removed from the game. Wisler obviously shares some of the blame as a sinker baller should keep the ball in the infield a lot more, but he was pitching quite a lot in the middle of the plate low, which is a spot a lot of hitters can get to and drive into the outfield. It wasn’t as if he was missing his catcher’s mitt very often to the middle of the plate, though, so those pitches were called for the middle of the plate.

If I were grading the start on an A-F basis, I’d give it a B/B- grade.

If I were grading the corner outfield defense by Benson and Perez, two typically excellent defenders, it’d be an F. Both had terrible games, taking poor routes on balls that should have certainly been caught, but that’s for another article.

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