This has nothing to do with anything except me reveling in the things you stumble upon in the PITCHf/x data set. I was looking at some Roy Oswalt data from last year. When I looked at his August 18 start, I noticed he had thrown his fastball at two distinctly different speeds.
When do you think Oswalt pulled his left oblique muscle?
You’re right. From the AP game recap:
Oswalt said he first felt something near his rib cage on his last pitch of the third inning, a curveball to Geoff Blum. Oswalt batted with two outs in the fourth and beat out an infield RBI single to give the Astros a 3-0 lead.
“I went through the fourth and told them I want to stay out there and see if I could get through two more innings,” Oswalt said. “Made it through the fourth and thought I could have made it through the fifth.”
No revolutionary analysis there, but I thought it was a fun tidbit.
