Rick Scuteri-USA Today Sports
The Arizona Diamondbacks had signed veteran free-agent pitcher Brandon McCarthy with the hope that he would provide some stability to their starting rotation this season. However, McCarthy already looks to be the weakest link in their rotation so far after three starts.
This was very evident in the start Tuesday night against the New York Yankees, where he had problems recording outs and finishing off the batters. McCarthy looks like a pitcher that has no control or command of his pitches, and he also allowed numerous batters to reach base in every inning but one.
The Yankees did a great job of forcing him to throw an abundance of pitches in this start. The big problem for McCarthy was that he could not locate his pitches when it mattered most. He did show in this start that he could get ahead of the batters that he faced, but that was the best that he could do.
For McCarthy to be an effective pitcher in his future starts this season, he will need to take advantage of the one good aspect of this start for him — that his breaking pitches were useful to prevent the Yankees from just sitting on his fastball.
McCarthy did pitch well in the spring for Arizona and showed that there were no side effects from being struck by a line drive to his skull last season. The success that he had in the spring has translated to the kind of results that the Diamondbacks were looking for.
Chris is the Diamondbacks writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow and interact with him on Twitter. Like Chris on Facebook. Add him to your network on Google
