Know Thy enemy: Tomo Ohka

Today, in the final game before the All Star break, the Tigers are throwing out their ace against a pitcher who is a borderline major league starter at best. To put it bluntly, this is a mismatch. Of course, Luke French vs. Zach Grienke was a mismatch and we know how that turned out. Lets examine the matchup in depth.

Verlander is one of the few pitchers in the game in which it does not matter what team he is facing, and he should be expected to excel regardless of any potential mismatches against him. Against Cleveland this year, he has absolutely dominated. Here are the combined numbers for his 2 starts against them this year:

IP ER H SO BB
16 1 4 22 5

Needless to say, that is simply dominant. Historically, Victor Martinez, Ryan Garko and Grady Sizemore all have an OPS above .800 against him. This year, though, that has not really mattered. If anything, the 3.59 ERA he is sporting is misleading and not indicative of how well he has pitched and how well he should pitch as the year goes on. He has a 2.72 FIP that ranks in the top 5 in the game. His K/9 rate of 11.00 is the best in the game. And, he has cut down his walks to just a 2.73 BB/9 rate. His 1.20 WHIP is not at the level of an Edwin Jackson, but is still impressive. His fastball and curveball are both plus pitches and he has a WAR of 4.0 (5th in MLB). His last three starts he has allowed either 3 or 4 ER. Considering his peripherals and his success against the Indians this year, it could be time for Verlander to have another special pitching performance.

Now onto Ohka. He is a 6-1 righty who is 33 years old and a veteran who used to be a reliable starting pitcher. In 3 seasons with Montreal in 2002-2004, he posed ERA's of 3.18, 4.16 and 3.40, respectively. In 2005, he split time between Milwaukee and Washington (Montreal's franchise moved to Washington) and he posted an ERA of 4.04. Then, after 4 good years, the bottom fell out for him. He pitched one more year for Milwaukee before they let him walk as a free agent. He then had tours of duty for the Blue Jays, Cardinals, White Sox and Mariners before signing a contract with Cleveland this year. Up to this point, he has not recaptured the magic he had from 2002-2005.

This season, Ohka has a 6.35 ERA as a starter during his 3 starts. For the year, he has a 6.47 FIP, 1.47 WHIP and a K/BB rate of just 1.11. His HR/9 rate of 2.20 is awful. We can play some long ball with this guy.

Ohka has a 1.07 GB/FB ratio this year and is not nearly the groundball pitcher that he used to be with the Montreal/Washington organization. He only allows line drives about 16.7% of the time, but he has an incredibly high HR/FB ratio of 17.1%. Again, we can hit some home runs off him. He has been a reverse split pitcher this year with righties hitting for an OPS of .966 against him. Lefties have an OPS of .795. The largest difference is that lefties get on base at a much lower rate compared to righties. The slugging percentages are not that much different.

Ohka is a 3 pitch pitcher who relies on his slider slightly more than his fastball. The remainder of the time, he will probably use his cutter (which has been a plus pitch this year according to Fan Graphs). His velocity is nothing to write home about as his fastball only averages 88 MPH.

We only have 5 batters who have ever faced Ohko. One of them (Guillen) is on the DL and the other (Ordonez) will probably sit tomorrow as a part of that platoon. But, Miguel Cabrera has absoultely crushed him. In 30 career at bats, he has 14 hits. Of those, 7 were doubles, one was a triple and one was a HR. He has a .467/.515/.867 stat line against him. Hopefully, Ohka loses some sleep over that tonight.

Based on the numbers, we should expect a right handed heavy line-up tomorrow for this 1:05 start. Dusty Ryan will probably play in place of Laird to give Laird some rest before the All Star break. We should get to Ohka and Verlander should continue his good performance against the Indians. What should happen and what does happen are sometimes two different things though...