Apart from the control problems, he seemed to be getting hit pretty hard, although he was able to limit the damage. He also almost decapitated Vlad with a couple pitches.

Chalk it up to nerves and I think the next few starts will tell us a lot more.

His stuff didnt look that great. His velocity wasnt impressive. I watched tonight’s start and last week’s ST start… he looked about the same in each. Looks like more of a sinkerballer than a strikeout pitcher. He was a bit erratic, especially with his secondary offerings. Went through lots of stretches where he lost his fastball, too.

MLB GD has his average fastball velocity as 89.7mph.

I wouldnt draw any conclusions yet. Could just be nerves or a billion other things… but certainly looks like he could have used some more seasoning…

but it certainly wasn’t impressive. sometimes you see a young guy like, say, Kershaw or Buchholz last year and even if the results aren’t great, the raw stuff is obvious. Cahill, on the other hand, looked pretty mediocre, no real pop or great movement. it could be that his stuff just took an off night due to nerves or due it just being one of those nights. His sinker did look excellent and it could also be that what was lacking tonight that he usually has wasn’t his ‘stuff’, but rather his command. Never exciting seeing a good sinkerball pitcher, but combined with command that’d be plenty to be successful.

but what people are saying more or less captures what he looked like. Seemed like most of his sinkers were sitting 87-88 with good, but not great, drop. Seemed like he was leaving a lot of pitches up in the zone, so when he threw strikes they were up in the zone, sitting about waste high on the hitters. That’s not exactly where you want to work as a sinkerballer, and if the pitch isn’t getting over 90 MPH, that’s really all you can be.

That said, how much of this can be attributed to nerves? I’ll be interested to see how the control looks in his next few outings..

Let’s not forget to take into account, having your first major league start in Anaheim is not the easiest thing to do. The kid just turned 21 a month ago. The team is full of very good hitters and they were very patient with him. In addition, the ump wasn’t giving him any borderline calls, and the commentators were noticing this also.

I will say though, he definitely looked very erratic. He looked to be gripping his pitches too tight and losing the control. Could have been nerves. There were alot of hard hit balls off of him though. I wish they would send him down for more seasoning in the minors.

In the 5th inning, I think he really started to settle in and he was locating his pitches very well. I look forward to his next start.

I watched that too – he looked exactly the same as this time… so-so stuff.

I dont think this means much of anything, especially in terms of the long term… Im thinking he’s just not ready.

He was leaving his stuff up and that led to walks and hard hit balls. He did show swing and miss stuff on two sinkers down and in to Kendrick with good movement and a 79 mph change up to Vlad. The change had the same movement as the sinker.

Long story short if he can execute he could be very good with the stuff he had last night but he’s not a power pitcher that can leave stuff up or down the middle or he will get lit up.

his pickoff move is atrocious.

see on MLB network last night they were showing how he grips his 2 seamer. He keeps his thumb on the side of the ball instead of under it. Has anyone else ever heard of this.

Last night’s start demonstrated as much. His command is not sufficiently well developed for him to succeed at this level. If there’s any consolation for A’s fans, it’s that he’s so likely to fail that the issue of service time is almost negligible— he is going to be going back to AAA. Too bad he’ll be pointlessly eating a 40-man roster spot.

But he was also getting called balls on a lot of pitches on the corner that Mosely was getting. The sooner we have a generic strike zone the better. The fact that umpire can effect the game so much just because the pitcher is a rookie is ridiculous.