What's the matter with Ollie?

I didn't see any of last night's game, so there's not much from the actual game I can comment on. Reading the write-ups today and seeing the box score, something jumps out.

Perez (L 1-4) 5.1 IP 10 H 8 R 8 ER 2BB 1K 8.03ERA

Something is very wrong with Oliver Perez. Coming into the spring when I heard he had elbow problems I thought we were in for the Kris Benson situation all over again. Pretend like he's not hurt that bad, say he'll be ready for the opener, then say May, then suddenly, BAM! Tommy John Surgery, out for the year. This turned out to not be the case. They told us he'd be a week behind the pitchers and he'd be fine by Opening Day. They were wrong. So the question is, what's wrong with Oliver Perez? I have a couple theories.

#1- He's hurt. When Sean Burnett went in for elbow surgery last fall he said it was something that had been bothering him on and off for the last four years. That was a pretty disturbing statement from my point of view because here is supposedly one of our top pitching prospects who's had arm trouble for four years and we did nothing about it. It's possible Perez does have some kind of arm trouble that if attended to now could avoid something much worse in the future.

#2- Last year coming into spring, we set out to fix Perez's motion, to eliminate the pause in his delivery, and to fix his arm angle. We did all these things, and he had more control than anyone could have hoped for. It doesn't look to me like we did that this year. This year he often pauses awkwardly at the leg kick, something he did maybe once a game last year. His arm angles are all over the place and his entire motion is much more violent than it was last year. For some reason it looks we decided that since he was our ace he didn't need any more work ignoring the fact that HE'S 23 YEARS OLD. Not only has he lost control this year, but his motion this year is worse for his arm, which means that if he's not already hurt, he soon will be.

#3- This is an opinion I've held for several years now, but Spin Williams is awful. Whatever is wrong with Perez, I don't know if he's capable of addressing it mid-season.

#4- He has McClendonitis. For those of you unfamiliar with McClendonitis, it is a disease that can be suffered by any player but especially pitchers.The first known sufferer was Jason Schmidt, but it has afflicted Pirates pitchers from Kris Benson to Kip Wells to now possibly Oliver Perez. What happens is pitchers that should be power pitchers become afraid to throw their fastball. They are afraid that if a ball is put into play, the routine play won't be be made and if they give up runs, they will lose. The name, of course, is attributed to the manager that often puts teams out on the field that are very weak fundamentally (for example, Rob Mackowiak playing second base without ever being told that Jack covers second on a comebacker with a runner on first). Kip Wells, who has had something like 19 leads blown by the bullpen in the last 2+ years is the best known case of McClendonitis. Kip is now unable to pitch without going to a full count on (what seems like) 80% of hitters because he feels he has to strike all of them out. The pitcher begins to feel that they have to strike out every batter to have any chance to win, and they go away from what should be their bread and butter pitch (the fastball) to a breaking pitch like the slider or curveball because more fastballs get put into play. Last year when the Giants were in town I heard an interview with Schmidt that more or less said that when he was a Pirate, he felt like he had to do everything on his own. He was throwing 40 sliders a game because he was afraid to use his fastball. He got to San Francisco and they told him to not worry about the play being made, to just throw his fastball. Schmidt is now one of the more dominating pitchers in the NL, with a 95 mph fastball that he blows past people on a regular basis. He throws less than 10 sliders a game with the Giants. The pitch Troy Glaus banged 464 feet off Ollie last night? An 0-2 slider.

Hopefully Ollie's problem is something mechanical, because if it is McClendonitis, he might be lost forever.