Johan

Santana is pitching tonight and everybody is bit nervous on how he has been pitching lately, including me. So I decided to look into and see how he has really been pitching since his hot June.

In the month of July he is 3-1 with a 4.74 ERA. That is not very good, in fact, it is about average. We have grown to expect more out of Johan these past few years.

The good thing is that really hasn’t been that bad. His DIPS is about 3.70 which still isn’t great but very respectable. Remember DIPS is a way to figure out his ERA based on the things a pitcher can control, like strikeout, walks and homeruns. He does not have much effect on other batted balls or so the theory goes.

The main thing that is hurting him is that his homerun rate has gone up a great deal. This will improve as will his control which has been good but not great. Sometimes a pitcher just has bad stretch and in this case he has a bad stretch which is also unlucky.

Also, all of the teams he faced in July with the exception of Kansas City have good power on their team and therefore when he makes a mistake it has a better chance to give up a homerun.

I think the turnaround starts tonight and he will pitch better the rest of the season. I know, I am not really going out on a limb.