There's one way to describe Gavin Floyd's outing against Pawtucket today: schizophrenic.
He started out hightly hittable, which he countered with a fit of wildness. In the middle of it, he struck out the side on 14 pitches, with the PawSox only able to tip a couple of pitches.
Floyd benefited from a strong wind that started out blowing in before settling at a straight left-to-right. He recorded his first seven outs via the flyball, and most of them sounded great off the bat. To counter it, he made an effort to keep the ball down, and he ended up walking the bases loaded in the third thanks to off-speed stuff in the dirt.
After that dominant frame, he issued three more walks in the fifth, including walking in two runs. This was the nibbling Floyd who wore out his welcome in Philadelphia.
The good news is that he definitely has the stuff, and he's never pitched as well at Triple-A as he's doing right now. I may have just caught a bad day.
Delivery: Unlike Lance Broadway, who has the classic smooth overhand delivery, Floyd is more of a slinger. The arm slot is similar, but he holds the ball behind his body a bit longer, and produces more of a whipping effect with his arm.
Repertoire: Floyd's fastball ranged from 90-94, and sometimes it looks a couple ticks faster because of his delivery.
The slider is considered Floyd's most improved pitch, and he indeed lured hitters into half-swings with it. It was in the 85-87 m.p.h. range.
His changeup was about 10 m.p.h. off his fastball, and was better than I remember it. I couldn't detect much sink on it from my vantage point, but there wasn't much of a difference in his arm speed.
Last, but not least, the curve, which he throws often and in any count, which is why he'll get a lot of flyballs. It registered 74-76 on the gun.
Command: As you can probably guess, it came and went today. He stuck to his offspeed stuff even though he was consistently missing low, perhaps overcompensating for missing up in the first two innings.
He showed the ability to work both sides of the plate with his slider, and got one backwards K using the back door. It's a nice complement to his curveball, which isn't quite 12-6 but has a definite loop.
There were times where I wanted him to go with his fastball, like when he was on the verge of walking in run No. 1. With the wind blowing in, he had a bigger margin for error, but he still kept throwing ankle-high off-speed stuff.
Video:
Delivery: Here 'tis.