Ahh only the Phillies could make Spencer Howard’s debut not that exciting to watch.
Howard was good, not great, on Sunday afternoon. He flashed what scouts, and Phillies fans, believe is top-of-the-rotation type stuff, but also showed the inconsistencies that often show up when a young pitcher makes his major league debut.
Let’s dive into it.
He didn’t generate any swings and misses on it, and Freddie Freeman took one out to left field, but my main takeaway from Sunday was that Spencer Howard has a really, really heavy fastball that is going to consistently be hard to do damage against going forward.
Howard does a really good job of “finishing” his fastball. By this, I mean he really whips his arm down late in his release to create the extra zip that I’m sure you noticed today on your screens. His fastball “jumps” at hitters and, as he gains more control over his secondary pitches, will only make his fastball more of a weapon.
His velocity was actually “down” today from what it normally was-- he has traditionally gotten it up to 97-98 MPH.
Howard’s early success in the big leagues is going to be because he has a change-up that he can theoretically go to in any count. For some reason, he got away from the change-up early in the game, only to come back with it in the third and fourth innings. I don’t think his breaking balls are consistent enough, at the moment, to be fully relied upon, but the change-up should be.
Pairing his fastball, that can reach 98 MPH, with a change-up in the low-80’s, is hard for any hitter to consistently stay on. 15 MPH difference on those pitches is ridiculous.
Eventually, I think the curve could be a good pitch for Howard. He just needs to tighten it up and get it to spin a bit more. The curve I saw today was a pitch that stays in the zone long enough for major league hitters to adjust and launch on. It’s a good change-of-pace pitch, but he needs to throw it harder. The curve today was around 75 mph, it needs to get into the low-80’s to really be effective.
The pitch that is eventually going to be Howard’s strikeout pitch is his slider. He throws it hard and it has some tight spin. The tell of a good slider is seeing the red dot on a baseball and you saw that a couple times today with his slider. That’s when you know it’s spinning well.
He was really tiring in the fifth. Velo was down to 90 mph on his fastball and the offspeed didn’t have the same bite to it. Same thing happened in the intrasquad games at Summer Camp. Long-term, I’m not too worried about this. He threw a no-hitter in a playoff start back in 2018, where he wa touching 98 in the 9th so he has the track record of being able to last in starts.