The data pointed to changes needing to be made. On Saturday, we received our first look at Chris Roycroft's adjustments with the A's.
Earlier this week, the Athletics added right-hander Chris Roycroft off waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays, and on Saturday night in Sacramento, he made his team debut against the Baltimore Orioles. He'd faced the O's earlier in the month, going two innings and giving up four hits and two earned runs while striking out one.
That was just over two weeks ago on August 14, and he operated as he has most of the season, relying primarily on his sinker (56%) and cutter (33%) while sprinkling in a few four-seamers and a sweeper.
When he was added to the roster on Wednesday, Athletics Roundtable asked A's manager Mark Kotsay about Roycroft, given that he's a big ground ball guy, but a lot of those ground balls came from his sinker, which tended to get hit. The righty had a .349 batting average against his sinker this season, despite a -5 degree launch angle.
Kotsay mentioned that the BABIP on that pitch had been up past .500, and joked that it was bound to come down.
He also hinted that they had some plans of how to utilize him, and that his deception and angle both play. The A's manager was coy, but he seemed excited about the team's latest addition.
On Saturday we got to see why.
Roycroft was inserted into a game that the A's trailed 4-2 at the time, and he worked a quick eighth inning, throwing 15 pitches (10 for strikes), sitting down the side in order.
The big change to his pitch mix was to limit the usage of his sinker and increase the usage of his four-seamer. On the year, the four-seamer has a .154 batting average against with a .131 xBA. It has been a solid pitch, but with a lower usage rate.
Saturday it was his most-used pitch, with Roycroft throwing eight of them, accounting for 53% of his pitch mix. That was up from 20% the rest of the season. Behind the four-seamer was his sinker, which he used 27% of the time, followed by his sweeper (13%) and cutter (7%).
The cutter was another pitch that was being used at a high clip, sitting at 24% on the season, but also had a .379 batting average with a .353 xBA. His four-seamer also had the highest whiff rate of any offering, and on Saturday his outing ended with a four-seamer above the zone that struck out Coby Mayo.
"I thought he did excellent tonight," Kotsay said after the game. "We made a little adjustment with him, and I think I saw a really confident kid coming off the mound, excited about that adjustment. He's got big stuff. It'll play."
