Intentional Blog on Balls

Now, we all know that Justin’s not going to maintain an ERA of 0.00 or even one within three runs of it. That said, Germano’s peripherals certainly support the thought that he has improved substantially and he wasn’t that bad before.

You’ll see that he’s striking out and walking fewer batters, but that his ratio between the two has improved. Also, you can see that his hit rate is unsustainable.

Clearly, Justin has been more than a little lucky. That BABIP is going to come up and with it his ERA. The rest of his BIP stats suggest he’s likely to remain successful, though. His GB/FB rate has improved by about 33% and his infield fly rate is nearly 300% higher. One has to wonder, though, are those stats based on anything other than small sample size?

Well, there is a potential explanation. Germano has said that he has worked extensively on improving his changeup and the number suggest he’s certainly more comfortable throwing it. He has thrown it twice as often this season as he did last season. 18.6% of his pitches this year have been changeups. His increase in changeups has come at the expense of his curveball which he threw 28% of the time last year. While this does not mean anything concrete, it certainly gives us reason for optimism with Germano.

(Note: this was inspired by R.J. Anderson’s analysis of Edwin Jackson at Beyond the Box Score.)