Statcast Week 2: A Tale of Two Cotton’s

Jharel Cotton has had two starts, one good and one bad. Has he been unlucky?To the casual observer, and generic baseball talking head, Oakland A’s starter Jharel Cotton’s season debut against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim was a rough outing. Cotton surrendered 5 earned runs, on 8 hits and 2 walks in less than 5 innings last Wednesday. The results were far less than ideal for the young righty trying to entrench himself in the Oakland rotation.

The box score backs up the assertion that Cotton did not pitch very well. Statcast, however, tells a different story.

Process Versus Results

Statcast tells us that the hits that Cotton allowed that resulted in runs for the Angels were not well-hit…