Deliver Us From Drabek

It didn’t quite live up to the hype of Strasmas, but hey … I’ll take Drabekkuh any day.

Kyle Drabek’s big league debut was fairly successful and for a guy making his very first start in the Major Leagues, he didn’t seem all that nervous. The Baltimore Orioles collected 9 hits off Drabek through 6 innings of work, and he fanned five.

After giving up two leadoff singles to start the game and then the runners advancing on a double steal, Drabek could have easily lost his composure in the first inning. But he kept his cool and remained fairly consistent the rest of the game.


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Kyle Drabek’s downfall was that he got behind in the count way too often. Out of the 27 batters he faced, Drabek was behind in the count 1-0 a total of 15 times. He also surrendered three first pitch singles, but got ahead of opposing hitters 0-1 a total of 8 times.

It’s difficult to nitpick Drabek’s debut because it was the very first of what are hopefully many more starts to come in the future. Even though he’s pegged as a power pitcher, the most lethal part of his pitch repertoire was what Pat Tabler referred to as a “spike curve”.

You could tell from the replays that some of the Orioles had an extremely tough time picking up the curveball (especially the lefties) and were swinging at it just above the dirt. It’s a phenomenal strikeout pitch and I can see him having a tremendous amount of success with that pitch in the future.

All in all, it was a pretty great debut for the Blue Jays number one prospect. kyle Drabek didn’t really blow anybody away a la Stephen Stasburg, but he was no slouch either. Of course, it would’ve helped if his teammates picked him up for a few runs, but that’s another story altogether.

Welcome to the big leagues Kyle Drabek, glad to have you along for the ride.

Just a piece of advice you might want to pass onto your pops: by the looks of his wardrobe, it looks like he’s been hanging out with Buck Martinez.

Ian Hunter

Ian has been writing about the Toronto Blue Jays since 2007. He enjoyed the tail-end of the Roy Halladay era and vividly remembers the Alex Rodriguez "mine" incident. He'll also retell the story of Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS to his kids for the next 20 years.

7 thoughts on “Deliver Us From Drabek

  • September 16, 2010 at 1:47 pm
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    His stuff was great but he was very predictable in his attack of lefties/righties. I'm sure it's always worked for him but at this level they can hit it if they know it's coming. Easy adjustment to make. Next outing will be better.

  • September 16, 2010 at 1:54 pm
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    Mattt, the other thing was since he got behind in the count so often, he was forced to go to the fastball, and the Orioles were totally sitting on it.

    Maybe that can attribute for the 9 hits. But you're right, next time hopefully he has a better plan of attack – but overall, great outing! You can't really knock a guy for having a quality start in his first big league game.

  • September 16, 2010 at 2:45 pm
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    You know who else gave up 3 runs and 9 hits in 6 innings last night?

    Doc!

    Just sayin'!

    #nextone #unreasonableexpectations

  • September 16, 2010 at 3:41 pm
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    Really? That's quite uncharacteristic of Doc (not the 3 runs 9 hits, but the only going 6 innings).

    Wow, that's a freaky coincidence.

  • September 16, 2010 at 4:06 pm
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    The zero walks and 9 k's was a nice touch though.

  • September 16, 2010 at 5:34 pm
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    Exactly. Even when Halladay is "bad", he's good.

  • September 17, 2010 at 4:09 am
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    Gaston needs to be fired NOW..even if it happens on the last day of the season. Jeff Kent, David Wells, and Jimmy Key (though Jimmy left town quiet and all), none of them could play for the guy, among many others. He held Green and Delgado back for YEARS!!
    So why are we surprised that he dicks Snyder and Arencibia around?
    The guy is pure poison, just like the best baseball mind ever in Toronto figured…that would be Pat Gillick, who has absolutely no respect or use for this idiot.

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