The guy still throws too many pitches and has a small problem issuing walks, but is it now fair for us to conclude that he CAN, in fact, pitch in MLB? Just a general question. There's really only one person who I know consistently maintained that he couldn't, but I hear very little about the quietly fantastic season the kid's having. I post this now, because I'm in the midst of watching a two-hit gem.
I'm surprised that he really hasn't been talked about that much. Even though W-L records are terribly overrated, you don't see too many people going crazy over him. He's still been pretty lucky this season though. His ERA shouldn't be that low with all of the men he's put on base.
No one goes crazy over him because he rarely pitches deep into games at all. He runs his pitch count up tremendously..
While that is true, it's not ALL luck. People are only hitting .211 off him, and slugging .337. He walks too many, but, watching him, it almost looks intentional. He doesn't miss badly, everything is on the edge trying to get guys to chase. It can be frustrating at times because he has incredible stuff and should be challenging hitters, but he nibbles looking for the K. In Japan they would let him throw 150+ pitches so he would go deep into games. Not here, which is the only real problem with him. He's made a HUGE leap from last year. If he can learn to go right at guys like he did tonight, he's going to be a top 2 or 3 pitcher in the league.
It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here. Nomo was all the rage after his first 2 seasons then sort of faded into mediocrity. People that look at W/L record and ERA will be dazzled of course but it does look like he has been quite lucky this year. Although he has cut down on his HR rate quite dramatically compared to last year.
He walks a ton, and always seems to have 2 guys on...yet somehow always finds a way to get out of the jams...its quite amazing. If he can lower the walk totals, he would be dominant.
Great year...Great record. Great stats outside of the walks... Still doesn't worry me at all though when he's on the mound. Much props to him though. Kei must enjoy watching him from Scranton.
I doubt he'll ever lower the walks substantially, it's a side effect of what makes him so effective, he throws a lot of stuff on the corners, and a bunch of different breaking pitches, this means that he's going to miss, and also that like most guys who throw lots of breaking stuff, the ump is going to miss more calls, because breaking pitches are much harder to judge
