NL notes: Buehler, Martinez, Brewers HRs

In an era where “analytics” is presented as the explanation for everything, the bogeyman behind every problem, the solution to every challenge, is there still a place for the wisdom of old-school baseball truisms?

It seems Walker Buehler thinks so.

The Dodgers’ young would-be ace is having a strange season. His strikeout rate is down, he’s far more hittable than last year, and as a result he’s lugging around an ERA over 5.

The culprit is his four-seam fastball, which he’s throwing more often and having less success with. The question is why that would be. His velocity? Actually up a bit from last year. His spin rate? Right in line with 2018. The results? Way, way worse.

It doesn’t seem to be a matter of location, either. He’s hitting what Statcast calls the “shadow” zones -- the edges of the strike zone, exactly where a pitcher wants to live -- slightly more often with the four-seamer this year.

And yet, it’s getting hit. Often and hard. The swing-and-miss rate on his four-seamer is down from 30.8% last year to 21.6% last year. The average exit velocity when hitters make contact with the pitch is up from 86.6 mph to 91.2.

And in the most important area, the actual results, it’s the same story. A year ago, opponents hit .176 and slugged .347 against the four-seamer. This year, those numbers are up to .281 and .404. All while he’s thrown the pitch much more often (up from 40.8% of the time to 60%).

So, we’ve gone through the analytics. About that old-school wisdom. In Buehler’s mind, it’s as simple as simple gets: He’s not throwing strike one enough. He’s throwing fewer strikes overall, but it’s especially prominent on the first pitch. His first-strike percentage has fallen from 63.6% last year to 52.5% this year. That’s a drastic fall, and it really does change everything.

“I think the biggest thing is I’ve probably been worse on first-pitch strikes this year,” he told MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick. “So you end up having to throw more advantage-count fastballs. I believe that the pitches out of my hand are good enough. I think I’ve shown that the past year and a half. It’s just a matter of putting it together and making pitches when I need to.”

He seems to be onto something. When Buehler falls behind in the count, there are two results: He throws more fastballs, and hitters sit fastball.

That’s a bad combination, even when you throw 97 mph.

Player of the week
A little less than three weeks ago, on the morning of April 17, José Martínez woke up with a .265/.265/.324 line. He’d started four of the Cardinals’ first 16 games, after enduring a winter of trade speculation. It would have been understandable if Martinez had felt a bit disaffected.

But opportunities soon arose. Tyler O’Neill and Harrison Bader both hit the injured list. Martinez started to play. And as he’s pretty much always done, Martinez raked. He seized the chance, raising his OPS by 300 points, and even as O’Neill and Bader have returned, Martinez has forced the Cards to keep playing him. Now it’s Dexter Fowler who’s out, this time due to injury, but even when he returns, it will be hard to keep Martinez out of the lineup.

If you hit, they’ll find a place for you.

Stat of the week
Entering play Saturday, the Brewers had hit 61 homers and allowed 55, both totals leading the NL. The last team to hit and allow the most homers in the NL was the 2014 Rockies. The last team to do it while not playing half its games at altitude? That would be the 2005 Reds, who hit 222 and surrendered 219.

Looking ahead: Series of the week
There’s plenty of good stuff in the week to come. We get another Brewers-Cubs series, and those are always fun. The surprising D-backs travel to visit the surprising Rays. Then there’s this pivotal matchup.

The Nats are having a tough time of it. They’re beaten up with injuries, they just dismissed their pitching coach and their bullpen is a work in progress, to put it kindly. Now they embark on a three-city road trip to three of the toughest places to play in the league: Philadelphia this weekend, Milwaukee at the start of next week, and then to cap it off, four games at Dodger Stadium, from May 9-12.

That series closes a run of 17 straight games without a day off for Washington. For L.A., meanwhile, it’s the middle of a big homestand, one that starts with a visit from the Braves and ends with the Padres in town. Two playoff contenders, who have played some memorable postseason series in recent years, going toe to toe. Should be fun.