The Jays finally win one against the Red Sox (3-2) and now head home for a series with Texas.
Shaun Marcum made it look pretty easy yesterday and picked up his second win. He went seven strong and gave up just a couple of hits and a walk to go against his six strikeouts. The hitters weren't having such an easy time of it, but Snider picked them up with a double and a homer giving him all the teams RBI. Kevin Gregg got roughed up a bit in the ninth for his worst outing as a Jay, but survived to convert the save.
Most of us were pretty baffled when Gregg was signed in the off-season. I think I can safely say no-one here thought he'd be this good - if you did stand up and take a bow. Prior to this year Gregg's never had an ERA under 3, and only twice had a K/BB over 3. Including yesterdays mini-meltdown his ERA this year is 2.12 and his K/BB is 4.75. SO, is this just a combination of a bit of luck and a small sample size or is he actually doing something different this year?
I had a poke around at fangraphs to try and figure this out. The first thing I noticed is that his predictive stats suggest he's been as good as his record looks. His fip is at 2.27 and his xfip at 2.40. The statistic that really stood out though is that he's become a groundball machine this year. His GB% is at 58.8% on the season, the highest it's ever been before was 46.8% back in 2005 when he was an Angel. The groundballs are coming at the expense of line drives, his LD% has always hovered in the high teens through his career, today it's at 8.8%. According to the pitch type numbers (I think fangraphs get's them from BIS) Gregg's doing this by completely changing his pitch selection. Before this year he threw 90% fastballs/sliders and mixed in an occasional splitter. This year he has started to throw a cutter almost 30% of the time and his fastball/slider combination more like 60%. He has played around with a cutter before this year, but this is the first year it's been a major part of his arsenal. I wonder if this is something he started with the Jays, as his groundball rate was very high last September with the Cubs, maybe that was when he started working this cutter into his repertoire. If he perfected it since he's been a Jay, then Bruce Walton deserves a raise.
By the way if you believe the fangraphs' 'Dollars' numbers Gregg's been worth $2.5 million so far this year,
No game day today. Texas are in town for a three day set this weekend.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20100512202714191