The San Francisco Giants and Brian Sabean are quickly running out of excuses to keep former fifth overall pick Buster Posey off their 25-man roster. Improbably, the Giants are 22-21 and right in the thick of the NL West race, only 3.5 games behind the Padres. Buster Posey is 23 and has a .960 OPS at AAA after putting up a .902 OPS at the same level in 2009. Meanwhile, the Giants offense has a wOBA of .316, sitting 14 runs below the league average.

The strong performance of Eli Whiteside has been a decent enough reason to keep Posey in AAA so far. His .383 wOBA currently leads the Giants, but that’s completely unsustainable given his paltry walk rate of 3.8%, a BABIP of .364, and a HR/FB of 14.9% that suggests above average power when he has hit only 15 home runs in the minor leagues in just over 500 PAs since 2007. Even considering his solid start, ZiPS only projects Whiteside to post a .296 wOBA the rest of the season.

Perhaps starter Bengie Molina’s roughly league average performance (.332 wOBA) is keeping Posey off the roster? Molina is posting a career high walk rate of 8%, but his power has all but disappeared. His ISO is down from .177 to .084, and as a 35 year old catcher, Molina is certainly at the age where a drop in HR/FB rate could just as easily be decline as random variation. Even if Molina continues to produce at this clip, his hitting is his only asset. Last season, Bengie Molina was 4.5 runs below average on the bases according to Baseball Prospectus’s EQBRR. According to our own Matt Klaasen’s catcher defense rankings, Molina has already been 3 runs below average, and was another 3.4 runs below average last season.

Supposedly, defense is the reason that the Giants are keeping Posey down in the minor leagues. Posey has excelled with the arm this year; he’s thrown out 44% of basestealers so far this season. That reason, however, breaks down when we see Buster Posey spending time at first base as he is in today’s lineup for the Fresno Grizzlies.

Posey’s MLE for his current line at AAA is a .293/.366/.437 triple slash line. Prior to the season, both CHONE and ZiPS projected Posey as a roughly average major league hitter, just above what they projected Bengie Molina. Taking into account defense, baserunning, and upside, and Posey was surely the correct choice for a team wanting to make a run at the postseason. Posey is producing at an even higher level in AAA this season, suggesting that he’s even better than these pre-season projections.

Especially with the position that the Giants are in right now, there is no excuse for Posey to remain in AAA. He has nothing left to learn there. The Giants need has bat in the lineup, and they need it before they lose any more ground to San Diego and Los Angeles.

With the Rays sitting at 32-13, obviously the Rays pitchers have been accruing wins – 32 of them, in fact. The Rays also have been the benefactors of both good defense and good luck. Entering tonight’s game against Boston, Rays pitchers had allowed only a 2.87 ERA against a 3.78 FIP and a 4.06 xFIP. They’ve benefited from a league best .272 BABIP. much of which can be attributed to defensive wizards such as B.J. Upton, Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford, and Jason Bartlett – and a HR/FB rate of only 8.6%, about 1% below the league average.

Still, even though it might not hold up for the whole season, there’s no arguing with the results so far. The Rays pitching staff has been by far the best in the MLB in terms of win probability, both in terms of straight WPA and context adjusted WPA/LI. The Rays 8.31 pitcher WPA leads the second place Padres by over 2.5 wins and the Twins, the second best AL team, by over four wins. Although they’ve performed over two wins worse by WPA/LI at 5.98, that’s still easily best in the majors. The Twins, again, are the next best team, and they come in at only 3.93.

It’s hard for a team to win 71.1% of their games for a 45 game stretch, even with good luck. It’s even harder for a team to actually play at the level of a 115 win team for 45 games, which, according to Pythagorean record, the Rays have. The pitching staff and defense are, naturally, the biggest part of that. The Rays 144 runs allowed are the lowest in the AL by a whopping 37 runs, despite the run prevention techniques employed by some richer teams this offseason.

The scariest part of all this is that the Rays hitters haven’t joined the party yet. Their .337 wOBA is certainly respectable. It works out to about 15 runs above average, right around what their +1.69 WPA suggests. If the hitters were merely producing at an average level, WPA suggests that the Rays would still be about 16 games over .500, at a 31-14 or 30-15 mark. That would still the best record in baseball by four or five games.

So even though Rays pitchers are potentially due for negative regression, depending on how much of their low BABIP is defense related and how much is luck related, the offense may be due for positive regression. Carlos Pena, B.J. Upton, and Jason Bartlett are all yet to find their stroke, and the loss of Kelly Shoppach to injury has damaged the Rays at catcher, despite the recent surge from John Jaso. The Rays have played about as well as possible for 45 games, and there’s no reason to expect them to stop now.

Entering the season, many forecasters, analysts, and other prognosticating types did not foresee either the Oakland Athletics nor the San Francisco Giants figuring into the playoff races of the 2010 season. However, entering the series on Friday, the Athletics sat in second place in the AL West, only four games behind the Texas Rangers and well within striking distance. Even more shocking was the Giants’ start to the season. They entered the series four games above .500 and only a game and a half behind the division leading San Diego Padres and a half game behind the Wild Card leading Los Angeles Dodgers. Shockingly to some, this Bay Area matchup could have a large impact on the playoff races on the west coast.

The series was all Oakland. The Athletics outscored the Giants 10-1 as part of a sweep. Athletics pitchers held Giants batters to a mere 14 hits and 6 walks in 99 plate appearances. Only three of the hits went for extra bases, and none for home runs. Starters Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez, and Ben Sheets all went at least 6 innings. Cahill struck out four in 6.2 innings and allowed the only run of the series, Gonzalez struck out five in eight innings while only facing 27 batters, and Sheets struck out eight in six shutout innings in his best start of the year thus far.

Although A’s hitters got to Barry Zito for six runs on nine hits in the first game, they didn’t do much after that. Matt Cain received possibly the toughest luck loss of the year as his threw an eight inning complete game on Saturday, striking out four and only allowing six baserunners. The only run scored on him was unearned – the run scored after a HBP, error, sac bunt, and sac fly. Johnathan Sanchez’s wildness killed him on Sunday. He only allowed three hits, but five walks resulted in two runs, which was enough given the excellent performance of Sheets and the Athletics bullpen.

As a result of the sweep and Texas’s 2-1 series loss to the Chicago Cubs, the A’s now only sit two games out of the AL West lead. On the other side, the Giants dropped two games in the standings to the Padres, who defeated the Seattle Mariners twice over the weekend, as well as the Los Angeles Dodgers, who took two of three from the Detroit Tigers. They now sit 3.5 games out of the division lead and 2.5 out of the wild card, and now only have cushion of half a game over last year’s Wild Card champion, Colorado.

The Athletics are now potentially only a day away from first place, whereas the Giants are only a day away from fourth. This series has changed the complexion of the season for both of these teams – if Oakland finds itself in the playoffs come October and San Francisco is sitting at home, this series should be pointed to as a pivotal moment in both team’s seasons.

The Cleveland Indians placed CF Grady Sizemore on the disabled list on Thursday. Entering last season, Sizemore was a legitimate superstar. From 2005-2008, Sizemore compiled 25.5 wins above replacement, playing at an all-star level both in the field and at the plate.

The 2009 season was a struggle for Sizemore. He still managed a .343 wOBA – well above average for a center fielder – but that mark signified a drop in both on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Combined with a UZR which fell to -4.6 – the first below average defensive season of his career – Sizemore’s WAR fell to 1.9, by far a career low for a full season.

The struggles have only been amplified in 2010. Sizemore has yet to hit a home run in 140 plate appearances, and his batting average and on-base percentage have yet to return to 2008 levels. Now, it appears that we may have an explanation for Sizemore’s struggles, at least in the 2010 season, as the deep bone bruise on his left knee that has sent him to the disabled list may require surgery to fix.

Sizemore’s 2009 season and 2007 season compare favorably. Both seasons saw Sizemore homer on roughly 11% of fly balls. Sizemore walked slightly more often (13.5% to 11.9%) in 2007, but he also struck out more (24.7% to 21.1%). However, Sizemore posted a 132 wRC+ in 2007 compared to 112 in 2009. The difference is in his performance on balls in play. In 2007, Sizemore posted a BABIP of .333, contrasted with a BABIP of only .275 in ’09. The question, then, is whether or not this BABIP dip which has carried over to 2010 (.287 in 93 BIP) is indicative of his true talent of if it’s simply random variation.

We can separate Sizemore’s career into two separate eras based on his BABIP. From 2005-2007, Sizemore’s BABIPs were .334, .339, and .333 respectively – a remarkably stable mark. From 2008-2010, Sizemore has recorded BABIPs of .290, .275, and .287. Still relatively stable, given the statistic, but a far cry from the high marks of his early career.

The key difference in Sizemore’s profile is a jump in infield fly balls. His IFFB rate stayed within the 5-6% range from 2005-2007, but jumped all the way to 10.% in 2008, 8.7% in 2009, and 7.7% in 2010. The infield fly ball is death to BABIP – the league BABIP on balls marked infield fly is roughly .020. This hasn’t been accompanied be a marked change in FB rate or a decrease in HR/FB rate – marks that could indicate either an uppercut swing or a loss of latent power. This doesn’t completely explain the drop in BABIP, but a 3% increase in infield fly balls essentially takes 6 hits away per season, which explains a sizeable portion of the dip. Hitting more infield flies could also suggest that Sizemore is simply making weaker contact, which would lower his BABIPs on all batted ball types.

Perhaps the various injuries that Sizemore has been dealing with since 2009 have changed his swing in some way as to induce more infield fly balls and create weaker contact than in his best years. Perhaps it’s an issue with his plate discipline, as Dave Allen noted last week, or a combination of the two. Last season, Sizemore dealt with a pulled groin which later needed surgery and then elbow surgery in the offseason. The best case scenario for the Indians is that some simple rest allows Sizemore’s body to fix what ails him and allows him to regain his swing. If injuries aren’t the issue, and Sizemore simply isn’t able to reach base on balls in play as he did from 2005-2007, the era of Grady Sizemore as a superstar will likely be over.

In 2009, the Atlanta Braves had one of the worst outfields in the major leagues. Their outfielders combined to hit for a .319 wOBA and combined for a -23.6 UZR. Overall, their outfield was 40 runs below the league average – the main weak spot on a team that won 86 games and could have been right in the thick of a playoff race. The first step to improving that outfield came in June of 2009, as the Braves acquired Nate McLouth. It wasn’t enough to make a playoff run, but McLouth was a definite improvement. His .342 wOBA was a far cry above the failed seasons of Garret Anderson (.304 wOBA), Jeff Francoeur (.277), Jordan Schafer (.273), and Gregor Blanco (.244).

McLouth’s production has plummeted this season. Entering Thursday’s game, McLouth’s wOBA was a paltry .303, reminiscent of those 2009 Atlanta Braves outfielders whom he was imported to replace. Some of the telltale signs of random variation are there. McLouth’s .259 BABIP and 8.8% HR/FB rate are both career lows. His 13.4% walk rate is actually a career high.

However, there is one serious red flag with McLouth’s performance this season. His strikeout rate has skyrocketed to 29.1% against a career rate of 19.8%. As a result, despite a BABIP drop of only 22 points, McLouth’s batting average has fallen from .256 to .204. As a result, McLouth’s on base percentage has dropped by 28 points and his slugging has fallen by an alarming 86 points from the 2009 season.

His plate discipline numbers don’t offer an immediate answer as to why we are seeing this dramatic increase. McLouth’s swing rates, both inside and outside of the strike zone, are both quite low – around 8% below the league average – and his contact rates are above average. His plate discipline profile is very similar to his 2006 and 2007 seasons with Pittsburgh. In those years, McLouth struck out in 21.9% and 23.4% of at-bats respectively.

McLouth’s swinging strike rate of 5.1% is actually below his career average. Unsurprisingly, that means his kS% – percentage of plate appearances ending in a swinging strikeout – has remained around the levels of previous years and has actually decreased slightly from last year. That means that his kL% – strikeouts looking – is completely responsible for this increase in overall strikeouts. Indeed, McLouth’s kL% has risen to 13.4% – about triple his 2009 mark of 4.4% and the league average rate of 4.5%.

It would seem, then, that much of McLouth’s struggles are a result of looking at too many good pitches with two strikes. Taking pitches has always been a big part of McLouth’s offensive philosophy, so it is unsurprising that over a small sample some of the borderline pitches that McLouth watches, even on two strike counts, have gone for strikes instead of balls this year. This could be explained by simple random variation – poor calls from umpires, extraordinarily good control from pitchers in McLouth’s PAs – or it could also be explained by a decline in McLouth’s ability to perceive the strike zone.

It’s too early to say for sure which is the actual cause. However, one thing is clear: in order for McLouth to right the ship, he’s simply going to have to start making contact with these third strikes. If he doesn’t, his early season struggles will continue, as he simply does not have the skills to be productive with the increased strikeout rates.

Entering Thursday’s start against the Cleveland Indians, Luke Hochevar’s season could accurately be described as “roller coaster.” It doesn’t matter if we refer to his results or his stuff – Hochevar has been all over the place this season

First, his WPA to date:

And his velocity to date:

Hochevar’s season took another turn on Wednesday, as he turned in his best start since throwing 7.2 shutout innings including 15 ground balls in his opening day start against the Detroit Tigers. Hochevar went the distance, striking out seven, walking two, and allowing one home run. Hochevar also drew 10 ground balls against 10 balls in the air, right in line with his 49.6% ground ball rate.

The most encouraging sign for Hochevar in today’s start was a 15.9% swinging strike rate. That’s over double both his career rate of 7.9% and his season-to-date rate of 7.7%. Hochevar was drawing swinging strikes on nearly every one of the seven pitches the Pitch F/X data recorded today. Particularly effective were his cut fastball and slider – Hochevar threw the two pitches a combined 33 times, drawing 24 strikes (72.7%) and 5 swinging strikes (15.2%).

His fastball was around the zone all day. Only 11 of the 40 fastballs that he threw missed the rulebook strike zone, and he also drew 2 swinging strikes on it. Overall 29 of his fastballs were strikes, for a 70.7% rate. With the fastball averaging 93.6 MPH and topping out at 95.5, it should be a huge weapon for Hochevar, especially if he locates his secondary pitches as he was today. According to pitch type linear weights, the fastball was Hochevar’s most effective pitch, at -1.97 runs in only 40 pitches – a rate of -4.95 runs per 100 pitches thrown, an incredible rate for a fastball.

The Royals won’t be contending this year, as they’re already 8 games behind the Twins for the division and 9 games behind the Yankees for the Wild Card. With Zack Greinke already in place, the team sorely needs a second pitcher to step into that rotation. The Royals hope that Hochevar can be that guy, and today was an indication of just what he can do.

Undoubtedly, everyone who reads this site knows of the situation between Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez and manager Fredi Gonzalez which developed over the last few days. Ramirez’s actions, particularly his comments on Gonzalez’s lack of major league experience as well as Ramirez’s unwillingness to apologize to his teammates, seemed like the perfect primer for a massive clubhouse rift if it wasn’t handled appropriately.

The main issue for Gonzalez and the Marlins is that Hanley Ramirez is clearly the best player on the team. With the Marlins at 22-19, within three games of the division and one game of the wild card, losing Ramirez for multiple games could be extremely damaging to their playoff aspirations. Ramirez has a 130 wRC+ so far this year – a down year so far. Still, that’s extremely productive for a shortstop who appears to have figured out his former issues in the field. That makes Ramirez about a 5 win player even if his hitting doesn’t return to the 150 wRC+ he was at from 2007-2009, and a 7 win player if it does. Benching Ramirez for a significant period of time simply was not an option for Gonzalez.

Today, Ramirez was in the lineup after apologizing to his team. Ramirez was the most valuable position player for the Marlins, posting a .146 WPA in a 3-5 effort including an RBI in the two run fifth which gave the Marlins a lead they wouldn’t relinquish, as they defeated the Cardinals in St. Louis by a score of 5-1.

Much of the sabermetric community harps on the in-game decisions made by managers. We love to dissect the tiny differences between bringing in a closer in the 8th inning or batting a slow but excellent hitter in the leadoff slot. The impacts of those decisions tend to be minimal over the course of the season – usually costing teams only a few runs over 162 games. We spill so many words over these decisions because they seem like such easy fixes. It’s painful to see men that have been inside baseball seem to misunderstand such simple concepts.

Situations like the one that Fredi Gonzalez has had to defuse are much more likely to cost a team multiple wins over the course of a season. If the star player is visibly disgruntled and isn’t playing up to his potential, the impact on the team will almost certainly be more than a few runs. If the manager takes things too personally and benches the player for an extended period of time, or worse, instigates a trade or demotion, the impact will almost certainly be multiple wins. The job of the manager is to produce the most wins from the talent he’s given. Keeping the players in a situation in which they will produce at their highest levels is assuredly more important than the minutiae of lineup construction and, in all but the most extreme of cases, bullpen and bench management.

It certainly appears that Gonzalez has deftly handled this situation. Ramirez is back in the lineup and has apologized, and he produced in his first game back. Gonzalez has performed the most important duty in his role as manager. Now what’s important is that this issue appears to be squarely behind the Marlins, and they can go back to winning games instead of dousing clubhouse fires. If the Marlins are still winning two months from now, nobody will even remember this incident, and for that, Fredi Gonzalez deserves praise.

Since Ducky Medwick in 1937, no National League player has completed the illustrious Triple Crown – leading the lead in batting average, homers, and runs batted in. Nearly a quarter of the way through the 2010 season, Andre Ethier of the Los Angeles Dodgers leads the National League in all three of these categories, with a .392 batting average, 11 home runs, and 38 RBIs. On Tuesday, the Dodgers announced that the fractured finger that he sustained on Saturday would send him to the disabled list for the first time in his career.

Given that the injury will likely sideline Ethier for two to three weeks, if not more, his triple crown dreams are essentially dead. With 27 players within four home runs of Ethier’s total of 11 and 12 players within 10 RBIs of Ethier’s total of 38, it’s almost assured that Ethier will only lead the league in batting average upon his return.

At this point, the Triple Crown is not much more than a historical relic. Much more important is how the loss of Ethier will impact the Dodgers’ playoff chances. The Dodgers have rattled off nine straight victories after a 13-17 start and now only sit half a game behind the upstart San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants. With 203 runs scored, the Dodgers’ offense has quite easily been the best in the National League West, and Ethier’s tremendous performance to date has been the leading factor.

Right now, the Dodgers’ lineup has a wOBA of .338. That mark puts them at 15 runs better than the average NL offense. Remarkably, Andre Ethier has been worth over 20 runs just by himself. Replace Ethier with a league average hitter, and the Dodgers’ offense is roughly 5 runs below average. That’s equal to the level of the Florida Marlins’ offense so far this year or the Chicago Cubs’ offense in 2009. Both of those offenses are a far cry away from averaging 5.21 runs/game or finishing 3rd in the NL in scoring.

For the foreseeable future, Ethier will be replaced by Xavier Paul and Reed Johnson. The right handed hitting Johnson will likely see most of the plate appearances against left handed pitchers. Johnson has typical splits, and hits about 20 points higher against lefties than he does against righties. That puts Johnson’s half of the platoon at about a .325-.330 wOBA, given his performance so far this season as well as his preseason projections. The left handed hitting Paul has posted a .373 wOBA so far this season, but that’s heavily boosted by a .364 BABIP. His minor league numbers suggest an above average ability to reach base on batted balls, but not to that extent. An overall wOBA of .305 is a more reasonable projection for Paul. Against mainly right handed pitchers, that projection jumps up to roughly .315.

That puts the wOBA of the platoon as a whole at .319, or nearly 190 points below Ethier’s performance to date and 83 points below his rest of season ZiPS projection. If this platoon only sees 12 games – assuming a very optimistic return date of June 1 – the Dodgers will lose about four runs of production against Ethier’s projected performance. Both Paul and Johnson are much better fielders than Ethier, who’s been roughly -10 runs per 150 games over his career. Ethier’s offensive superiority, however, simply cannot be replaced by poor-to-average bats and slightly above-average gloves.

There’s no doubt that the Dodgers will need Andre Ethier back in their lineup as soon as possible. Their division-leading offense has been the key to their current run and will be key to gaining a lead over the division and holding it over not onlythe first place Giants and Padres but also the very talented Colorado Rockies. Xavier Paul and Reed Johnson should offer solid defense and acceptable hitting in the meantime, but Ethier’s bat is just simply irreplaceable, and much of the Dodgers’ 2010 season will hinge on his recovery.

As we enter play on Friday, the entire National League is only separated by nine games – the difference between NL leading San Diego at 22-12 and NL trailing Houston at 13-21. The entire NL Wild card race is occurring within a 6.5 game spread, as Washington currently leads the race at 20-15. The American League, on the other hand, has already started to separate, as Tampa Bay leads Baltimore by 13.5 games and only four other potential Wild Card teams are within eight games of leading New York.

We’ve also seen some surprises emerging in the National League. Washington, as mentioned above, is leading the Wild Card race despite a pitching staff without a single pitcher projected as above average. Cincinnati is four games over .500 despite most projection systems pegging them at .500 or below. San Diego and San Francisco are both surprising in an NL West which was handed to either Los Angeles or Colorado by most projection systems and analysts.

Naturally, that means that some teams projected to do big things in this year’s National League are struggling out of the gates. CHONE projected Atlanta to win the NL East on the strength of an above average lineup at every position and a starting rotation with four pitchers projected as average or better, and that’s assuming Jason Heyward as a below average player. The Braves now sit at 16-18, 3.5 games out of the Wild Card and 4.5 games out of the NL East race. Colorado, a team with perhaps the most talented position players in the National League, has an identical record and is 6 games back in the NL West.

Of course, some players have emerged since the beginning of the season and others have been lost to injuries or ineffectiveness. What we project for teams going forward obviously won’t be identical to what we projected at the beginning of the season. However, with only roughly 35 games in the books for each team, our projections for the rest of the season have to remain close to those for the regular season. Teams like San Diego, San Francisco, and Cincinnati that have outperformed expectations so far will likely revert towards – but not completely – their original projections for the season. Similarly, Colorado, Los Angeles, and Atlanta will likely begin performing better.

The current gaps between these teams, however, mean that we can expect some extremely close division and wild card races as the season continues. Right now, the playoff spot that appears to be locked up is that of the St. Louis Cardinals, who are just miles in front of the rest of the NL Central in terms of talent. The Philadelphia Phillies look to be in good shape as well, as they have built a large gap between themselves and the similarly talented Atlanta Braves, and the talent gap between Philadelphia and the Washington Nationals is too large for Washington to handle.

PECOTA’s playoff odds have four of five teams in the NL West with at least a 14% chance at the division title and none with a greater than 40% chance. Even tighter is the projected Wild Card race, as no team has a more than 12% odds at winning. Four teams are between 10% and 12% and another six are between 6% and 10%. The odds released at the beginning of May at Beyond the Boxscore showed similar results.

For fans of intrigue and drama, the Senior Circuit will be the league to watch this season. Given how the first 35 games have played out, almost the whole league has something to play for right now, and we are almost guaranteed that one race will be decided in the last few weeks of the season.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim signed closer Brian Fuentes away from the Colorado Rockies following the 2008 season, guaranteeing the left-hander $17.5 million over two years with a $9 million vesting option for 2011. Then, this past offseason, L.A. added former Detroit Tigers closer Fernando Rodney on a two year, $11 million dollar contract. On Monday night against the Tampa Bay Rays, the $28.5 million dollar setup-man and closer duo combined to allow four runs and a -.294 WPA in the 8th and 9th inning. The Angels did manage to come back and win the game 5-4, but their record is still only 15-19 and the bullpen figures to be an issue going forward with Fuentes and Rodney serving as the anchors.

Fernando Rodney is simply not a standout reliever. Over the last three years, he’s walked 92 batters in 165.2 innings, for a rate of 5.00 BB/9. The projection systems all saw him as close to that mark, and as such CHONE and ZiPS projected FIPs of 4.50 and 4.38 respectively – marks that put Rodney at roughly 0.2-0.4 wins above replacement in around 60 innings. He rediscovered himself as a heavy ground-ball pitcher last season, inducing 57.9% ground balls, but his walk rate was still high and the drop in strikeouts actually resulted in a higher FIP at 4.56. Despite throwing 75 innings – quite high for a reliever – Rodney only accrued 0.3 wins above replacement.

Rodney’s numbers have been slightly worse than those of last season. Rodney’s strikeouts are down again and his walks have crept back up to the point that he’s striking out exactly as many as he’s walking, at 10 each, or 6.14 per nine innings. However, he had posted a 2.45 ERA this year prior to last night’s appearance, completely based on a slightly high 80.5% LOB rate and an absurdly low .113 BABIP. Expect him to start allowing more runs as his walk issues will eventually come back to bite him as more hits start falling in.

Fuentes’s season has been odd as well, but in a much different way. The Angels closer blew his second save of the season after allowing his 3rd home run of the season in only 7.2 innings. Unless something has snapped with Fuentes and his stuff is no longer unable to suppress home runs, there is no way that his home run rate remains that high. I don’t believe that is the case – he clearly is still able to induce swings and misses and strikeouts. Fuentes was running a spectacular 12.15 K/9 and an acceptable, albeit high, 4.05 BB/9 entering last night’s appearance.

Fuentes’s poor luck with home runs has been slightly balanced out by a .234 BABIP, leading to a 4.05 ERA entering last night’s blown save. Things should start to even out soon for Fuentes, but don’t be surprised if he arrives at a similar ERA to what he is at now. Fewer fly balls will leave the yard, and more hits will start falling in. Given the fact that we’ve actually seen a drop in velocity from 90.0 to 89.4 on his fastball, Fuentes’s strikeout rate will probably fall as well. It’s highly unlikely that hitters continue to whiff on 30.8% of Fuentes’s offerings in the zone as they have thus far, as his stuff isn’t as good as it was in previous years. He’s never posted an in-zone whiff rate higher than 21.2% in any season where he has pitched a significant amount of innings. Overall, that leaves Fuentes as an unimpressive 4.00 FIP type pitcher, as CHONE and ZiPS projected entering the season.

Between Rodney and Fuentes, the Angels have two pitchers who are merely running on their reputations and save counts from prior years. As a result, more long nights like Monday from that expensive duo could very well be in store for the Angels.