Luke Hochevar was picked with the first overall pick of the Kansas City Royals in the 2006 amateur draft. Since being drafted, he has pitched exceptionally well in the minors as a starter (ERA = 3.59, WHIP = 1.243, BB/SO = 3.06) and reasonably as a young stater in the majors. Looking at Luke's numbers a little further shows that he starts out the games great, but begins to really struggle after a couple of innings. Here are his lifetime major league splits showing how he does early in the game compared to later in the game (I will only use numbers prior to the 8th inning for Luke has only made it to the 8th inning as starter once).

Split	R/PA	H/PA	HR/PA	BB/PA	SO/PA	SO/BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	tOPS+
1st inning	0.11	0.19	0.01	0.11	0.09	0.82	0.220	0.311	0.319	0.629	0.235	64
2nd inning	0.14	0.24	0.02	0.08	0.12	1.5	0.266	0.344	0.367	0.711	0.293	84
3rd inning	0.23	0.27	0.04	0.11	0.09	0.79	0.303	0.382	0.523	0.905	0.301	132
4th inning	0.14	0.27	0.02	0.07	0.17	2.57	0.299	0.358	0.433	0.791	0.351	104
5th inning	0.14	0.26	0.02	0.09	0.12	1.38	0.286	0.344	0.429	0.773	0.306	99
6th inning	0.11	0.28	0.01	0.07	0.16	2.4	0.304	0.355	0.377	0.732	0.351	90
7th inning	0.15	0.32	0.06	0.06	0.09	1.5	0.355	0.394	0.677	1.071	0.346	172
1st PA in G	0.09	0.22	0.01	0.09	0.1	1.12	0.250	0.332	0.347	0.680	0.273	76
2nd PA in G	0.19	0.27	0.03	0.08	0.13	1.5	0.299	0.370	0.483	0.854	0.318	119
3rd+ PA in G	0.16	0.28	0.02	0.07	0.13	1.69	0.308	0.360	0.453	0.813	0.333	109
Pitch 1-25	0.08	0.23	0.02	0.11	0.08	0.75	0.261	0.353	0.366	0.720	0.273	87
Pitch 26-50	0.13	0.24	0.02	0.06	0.1	1.67	0.264	0.323	0.401	0.724	0.283	86
Pitch 51-75	0.24	0.29	0.04	0.09	0.15	1.67	0.329	0.393	0.541	0.934	0.357	140
Pitch 76-100	0.1	0.25	0.01	0.09	0.17	1.9	0.282	0.342	0.359	0.701	0.333	82
Pitch 101+	0.25	0.25	0.06	0.06	0.06	1	0.286	0.375	0.571	0.946	0.250	142

Looking at the data, what stands out is how SLG increases marketable after the first 2 innings. Luke is just getting hit harder after the as the game progresses.

Then I used BrooksBaseball.net's pitch information and classification to see if there is any trends in Luke's pitching. Here are the the pitch classifications: FA = Fastball, FF = FourSeam Fastball, CH = Changeup, CL = Slider, CU = Curveball. The following is a charts of Luke's pitches for starts over the last 2 year to see if any reason behind these increasing numbers.

First, here are the results of every single pitch:

As can be seen, Luke's strikes per pitch increase while balls decrease. With just those thread, his results should improve in the later innings. This advantage of increase SO/BB seems to be offset by the increase in base runners.

Second, Luke's pitch speeds begin to drop as can be seen in the following chart and graph.

 

Innings	CH	SL	CU	FA	FF
3rd and 4th vs 1st and 2nd	-0.88	-0.32	-1.53	-0.14	-1.25
6th and 7th vs 1st and 2nd	-2.26	-0.73	-3.09	-1.16	-1.03

 

Finally this graph shows that Luke doesn't throw his fastball as much as sliders, curves and change-ups as the game progresses.

I am wondering if he is saving himself by not throwing the fastball or he knows that it is slower and he has no confidence in it

Conclusions

Luke Hochevar is considerably better in the first 2 innings compared to the next 5 for the first 1.5 years of his career. He quickly loses speed on all his pitches and doesn't throw that fastball as much. Luke was decent in the minors as a starter, but I believe that he can not cut it as a major league starter. The Royals will probably try to use Luke as a starter for a little longer, but his place is in the pen setting up Joakim Soria unless he finds a way to have some stamina to pitch into and past the 3rd inning.