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| Eddie Rosario. One pitch, one home run. No further questions, your honor. |
Kyle Gibson walked two and struck out just one in his six innings of work Wednesday night against Oakland.
Gibson in six starts is 3-2 with a 2.97 ERA, Nothing to complain about in the results so far.
But he also has walked 15 men in 36.1 innings and stuck out just 11. Those are some ugly ratios. The results and the process are out of whack, Gibson's "predictive" stats -- BB/K, K/9. FIP -- all portend disaster.
The fact is: Nobody is successful for long walking more than they strike out, and nobody is successful for long with a strikeout rate half the league average. It just doesn't happen. Gibson will be no exception.
I think Gibson's game last night is a good illustration of why a team does not bring up all of their rookies at the same time and why a team instead lets their phenoms mature in the minors if possible.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine if every game was filled with walks, errors and timely hits by the opponent?
We have seen plenty of that these last few years.
At a time in that game last night the 6-7 run lead did not seem secure.
Instead, Schaeffer, Robinson, Dozer, Plouff made some great and timely defensive plays that neutralized the A's base runners and kept the game in control.
I am more optimistic about Gibson than you are. He seems to be struggling a bit this spring, perhaps with his mechanics, certainly with his control. Still he isn't being hit very hard most of the time. When you watch him, he has good velocity, a lot of movement on his pitches(maybe more than he can handle at times), and 3 effective pitches. I realize most people want more strikeouts, but with a high ground ball rate and the amount of weak contact he generates(especially compared to others on the staff), I am inclined to think he will continue to be effective. Even if he has been a bit lucky up till now, if the control sharpens a bit, I believe(hope) that he will still see comparable results.
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