August velocity changes and another glance at inning counts

Here's your monthly look at velocity changes by Oakland A's pitchers.

A few notes:

-The list above is for whatever fastball type corresponds best to said pitcher. For example, Graveman rarely throws a fourseam fastball like most pitchers, and the averages above represent his average sinker.

-We're late in the season, so it's not a surprise to see some velocities going down. What will be interesting is to see how A's pitchers react as they approach their previous inning highs.

The gainers

Kendall Graveman

What a year for Kendall Graveman. Following that early season stretch of pure suck, he's been absolutely fantastic and he's been throwing absolute gas. Hopefully, he can finish the year strong and we can dream all offseason of Graveman being a solid mid-rotation arm.

John Axford

Axford had a solid August and his velocity is looking good. If only he could locate his stuff on a regular basis.

Andrew Triggs

Triggs is throwing harder as a starter as a reliever. That makes zero sense, and that's baseball.

Daniel Coulombe

Cool.

The losers

Liam Hendriks

Hendriks has been down consistently this year, but that hasn't affected his effectiveness since returning from his injured stint.

Ryan Dull

Dull has been worked and worked and possibly overworked all year long, and his velocity and effectiveness were both way down in August. Some of that is hopefully just building up strength for the longer big league season, but it's worrisome no matter the cause.

Ryan Madson

With two years remaining on his contract, it's worrisome to see Madson down a touch, though he's still throwing hard. Something to keep an eye on in Septebmer for sure. Madson had a solid August and his numbers are looking more palatable following his string of dinger based walk-offs.

Sean Manaea

Still waiting on those extra MPHs we've been hoping for all year long. Manaea has been pretty good since his rough start, but there's little debate over how much difference a few ticks could make.

The inning counts

Thanks to injuries galore, the A's are relying on a fair share of young pitchers. It's exciting for 2017 but the A's do have some thinking to do on how to approach their young arms as they reach new inning highs.

Alcantara, Cotton, Mengden, and Manaea are already past their previous inning highs. The A's have shown no intention of slowing any of those arms down, though September has only just begun. In a season so very devoid of storylines, here's the thing to watch in September.