WBC: Julio Urias and What Makes Him Good
Julio Urias will take the mound for Mexico Friday night in their World baseball Classic quarterfinal matchup with Puerto Rico in Miami. The southpaw was outstanding against Colombia, pitching four perfect innings before having a rough fifth inning, one in which he surrendered two doubles and a home run. Since 2019, he has had some of the best numbers in the majors, going 44–13 with a 2.63 ERA (64 ERA–), 491 strikeouts, 124 walks (6.3%), a 18.5% K–BB%, and a 1.022 WHIP in 495 1/3 innings across 81 starts and 30 relief appearances.
But at first glance, he does not appear to be all that tough. He has four pitches — a fastball, a slurve, a cutter that behaves more like a slider, and a changeup. None seem to be overpowering. Additionally, he has averaged 83 pitches and 5 1/3 innings per start since 2019, leaving a lot of his team’s success in the hands of its relievers. His average Game Score is 58, not much when considering every starter begins the game with a Game Score of 50. Fewer than half (46%) of his starts are quality starts — largely due to falling short of the requisite innings (six) — making 12 of his 41 wins as a starter Cheap Wins. (Author’s note: I’m not passing judgment — that’s the actual name of the stat when a pitcher gets the win without getting a Quality Start.)
What Makes Him Tough
So what makes Urias so tough? While true that his run support is a full run higher than the NL average from 2019 to 2022 (5.8 for Urias, 4.6 for the NL as a whole), that only applies to his win-loss record. His ERA– over that span is tied with future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer for the second-lowest in the NL and bested only by Jacob deGrom (55). Among NL pitchers with at least as many innings pitched as Urias, Urias has the second-lowest WHIP since 2019. Once again, only deGrom bested him (0.987).
One scout, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the answer is twofold. Urias can throw all four of his pitches for strikes. When he gets flustered, teams can get to him. Otherwise, he’s unhittable. The second reason is deception. Urias hides the ball well. Consequently, batters do not see the ball leave his hand as soon as they do with most other pitchers.
Puerto Rico will have its hands full with Urias. Manager Yadier Molina called him “one of the best left-handers in the majors.” Puerto Rico’s main hope is that they can rattle him so they can get hits and runs off him. They also will have an extra motivation to beat Mexico as a spark for fallen hero Edwin Diaz. Diaz blew out his patellar tendon in the postgame celebration after defeating the Dominican Republic Wednesday night.
First pitch will be at 7 pm Eastern, and the game can be seen on FS1.
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