{"id":7634,"date":"2013-09-09T08:15:53","date_gmt":"2013-09-09T12:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com.\/?p=7634"},"modified":"2013-10-06T10:31:41","modified_gmt":"2013-10-06T14:31:41","slug":"roark-throwing-his-hat-in-the-2014-rotation-ring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7634","title":{"rendered":"Roark throwing his hat in the 2014 rotation ring"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Roark<\/a>

Roark is putting himself into 2014 rotation contention. Photo Alex Brandon\/AP via wp.com<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ll admit it; I’m a fan of\u00a0Tanner Roark<\/strong>. \u00a0I’m a fan of the underdog<\/a>. \u00a0I’m a fan of the 25th round draft pick working his way up and making an impression at the MLB level.<\/p>\n

I never could understand how his decent numbers in Texas’ AA hitters league AA didn’t translate once he got to the Eastern league (after he was included in a trade for\u00a0Cristian Guzman<\/strong> back in 2010). \u00a0I figured that he was bound for the dreaded “org guy” title after his 2011 season; a middling .500 record with a 4.69 ERA<\/a> while repeating AA in his fourth pro year. \u00a0I figured he was just playing out the string when he passed through Rule-5 drafts and posted a 6-17 record in AAA.<\/p>\n

Nobody thought he could suddenly be dominant. \u00a0And around August of this year, it seemed like calling him up to cover for a suddenly open “long man\/spot-starter” role in the bullpen made complete sense. \u00a0And so far, he’s done nothing to disappoint.<\/p>\n

Is he putting his name into the lead for the 5th starter spot on this club in 2014?<\/p>\n

After\u00a0Ross Ohlendorf<\/strong> failed to make a case to stay in the rotation, Roark was given a start over the weekend and threw 6 incredibly efficient innings of 4-hit ball<\/a>. \u00a0 71 pitches, 46 for strikes, giving up 4 hits and zero walks to earn his 5th victory of the season and first by way of being a starter. \u00a0 Since this was Roark’s first start of the season, his pitch f\/x data is telling<\/a> (in shorter stints pitchers can throw harder knowing they’re done after 20 pitches). \u00a0Roark threw his 49 fastballs at an average of 93.07mph with a max of 94.81mph, had great success with his change and curve (throwing 5 of each and getting 8\/10 for strikes). \u00a0 He maintained the same velocity he was showing in shorter stints before his start. \u00a0Roark got excellent movement on his fastball, hit corners well (as he has shown he can do), and controlled the Marlins for 6 innings.<\/p>\n

Now, this is the Marlins we’re talking about. \u00a0So we’re not talking about the 1927 Yankees. \u00a0And one telling stat about Roark was this: he only got 2 swinging strikes the entire game (he had 4 punchouts for the night, mostly called). \u00a0He does not have swing-and-miss stuff. \u00a0But he does seem to really have “weak contact” stuff; there were only 2-3 really well hit fair balls on the night. \u00a0But, like I’ve pointed out in the past<\/a>, Roark works the corners, throws a heavy ball, gets a lot of weak contact, and doesn’t need to have 8.5 k\/9 stuff to succeed. \u00a0And it isn’t like this Marlins team is a little league team; they pounded\u00a0Dan Haren<\/strong> the night before (you know, Dan Haren, the guy who’s making 26 times what Roark is and the guy who, when he’s on the mound his team is now 9-18 on the year. \u00a0Great signing he’s turned out to be…).<\/p>\n

Taylor Jordan<\/strong>,\u00a0Nathan Karns<\/strong>: attention; Roark’s making a name for himself. \u00a0Spring Training could be fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll admit it; I’m a fan of\u00a0Tanner Roark. \u00a0I’m a fan of the underdog. \u00a0I’m a fan of the 25th round draft pick working his way up and making an impression at the MLB level. I never could understand how his decent numbers in Texas’ AA hitters league AA didn’t translate once he got to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2039],"tags":[1219,983,196,1554,77,24],"class_list":["post-7634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-rule-5","tag-cristian-guzman","tag-dan-haren","tag-nathan-karns","tag-ross-ohlendorf","tag-tanner-roark","tag-taylor-jordan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7634"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7682,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7634\/revisions\/7682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}