At 3:12 PM local time on May 09, 2010, Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics retired Gabe Kapler to finish off only the 19th perfect game in major league history, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays. Braden struck out six batters in the process and only required 109 pitches to record the 27 consecutive outs.

As for the other 21 outs, seven of them came on ground balls, ten on fly balls, and four on line drives. The A’s outfield defense was certainly kept busy, as left fielder Eric Patterson made four plays, center fielder Rajai Davis made four, and right fielder Ryan Sweeney made one more. The infield of C Landon Powell, 1B Daric Barton, 2B Adam Rosales, SS Cliff Pennington, and 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff combined, between ground outs and five air outs, to record the other 12 outs. Braden did a great job of keeping the ball in the ballpark, and his fielders were there to make the plays when needed.

How unlikely was this performance? Dallas Braden, over the course of his career, had allowed 6.9 hits per 27 batters, 2.0 walks per 27 batters, and 0.2 reached on errors per 27 batters. Overall, that’s 9.1 runners allowed per 27 batters – his numbers for this season alone are similar. According to a basic binomial distribution, the odds of Braden allowing no runners in 27 batters, as he did on Sunday, are .00001517, or 0.001517%. Braden’s perfect game wasn’t quite one-in-a-million. It was more like 15.2 in a million.

Perhaps this means that Braden has taken a step forward. That would be great news for the Athletics, as the former 24th-round pick has a career 4.62 ERA and a 4.10 career FIP – a useful pitcher, certainly, but not a centerpiece of a rotation. If Braden can continually step up in big ways behind Brett Anderson and Ben Sheets, the Athletics will have the best rotation in a tight AL West, with Sheets, Anderson, Braden, Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez, and Justin Duchscherer when healthy.

Finally, myself and the entire FanGraphs team (except for maybe R.J. Anderson) offer a hearty congratulations to Dallas Braden. His accomplishment today will go down in baseball history.

After spending time in limited roles over the last two seasons, it appears that Ian Stewart has finally locked down a permanent spot at third base with the 2010 Rockies. Wednesday night was supposed to be a day off for Stewart, but he still found a way into the game. In only his 3rd pinch-hit appearance of the year, Stewart drilled a Tim Stauffer offering into the seats for what would prove to be the game-winning home run.

Last night’s home run continues what has begun as Stewart’s best major league performance as of yet. Stewart’s triple slash line of .271/.370/.482 entering Wednesday night’s game is the best line he’s posted in all of the three categories. Naturally, that means his .367 wOBA and 118 wRC+ are also currently career highs.

Right now, there aren’t any indicators that show this start to be any sort of significant fluke. His BABIP of .322 is only one hit higher than his career line of .307 – 19/59 vs. 18/59. His HR/FB is up to 22.7% after last night’s shot, but that’s only one HR higher than his 2009 rate of 18.8%.

The key so far for Stewart has been a roughly five point drop in strikeout rate, down from 32.5% and 33% career to 27.1% so far this year. That’s still a high rate, and one that will likely prevent the 25-year-old Stewart to become a superstar in this league, but the drop has allowed Stewart to increase his batting average, and more importantly, his OBP.

Throughout his professional career, the discipline has been there and the power has been there. For Stewart to make the jump to the next level, the contact has to develop. After earning a starting role for the 2010 season, it appears that Stewart is doing just that.

The Padres improved to 17-10 last night and are, in my mind, undoubtedly the biggest surprise story of the 2010 season thus far. This fast start is largely in part of fantastic pitching. The Padres pitching staff carried a 2.92 ERA and a higher but still stellar 3.74 FIP into their contest against the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night.

Tuesday’s starter Wade LeBlanc has been a large part of the tremendous performance. He held the Rockies to two runs on seven hits in six innings, striking out four and walking two, not allowing a home run. Remarkably enough, this was quite easily LeBlanc’s worst start – it was the first one in which he had allowed more than one run or had a negative WPA.

LeBlanc’s ERA skyrocketed up to 1.15 from 0.52 as a result of this start. His FIP is also no longer sub-2.00. LeBlanc has mainly succeeded to due a ridiculous 95.5% LOB% in his first three starts – only one of the 24 runners that have reached base off him have scored. Still, we’ve seen some very encouraging things in LeBlanc’s peripherals that suggest that he can be a successful pitcher in the major leagues.

LeBlanc’s strikeout rates in the major leagues in 2008 and 2009 were a very low 5.91 and 5.83 respectively. Given that LeBlanc is not an extreme control pitcher, these rates simply weren’t high enough for LeBlanc to produce at the major league level, and he compiled -0.8 WAR in those two seasons and 67.2 IP with the Padres. That rate is way up this year, up to 7.71 K/9, even after last night’s slightly lacking four strikeout night. That’s not a terribly surprising increase, as LeBlanc is still young, at age 25, and had a strikeout rate above 8.00 in two stints in AAA, as well as in A+ and AA. This increase is supported by an increase in swinging strikes, up to 8.8% from 8.2% in 2009 and 7.7% in 2008. LeBlanc is also walking fewer batters, at 2.31 BB/9, down from a 4.02 career rate.

Obviously, LeBlanc isn’t this good. He’s not going to be able to constantly strand runners. His stuff – an 86.7 MPH fastball, a cutter, a changeup, and a slider – likely isn’t good enough to strike out 7.7 batters per nine innings. He’s been a fly ball pitcher his whole career – 42.8% rate – and that hasn’t changed at all in 2010. However, the improvements we’ve seen so far suggest that LeBlanc has the potential to become a league average pitcher, and likely is no longer the below-replacement level pitcher that has been forced to bounce between the majors and the minors. For now, though, he’s getting the job done in a big way for the 1st Place San Diego Padres.

Entering last night’s start against the Oakland Athletics, Rich Harden had been largely ineffective in his new role as the ace of the Texas Rangers pitching staff. Through his first five starts, Harden had only pitched 23.2 innings with a 4.56 ERA and an atrocious 6.97 FIP, thanks in large part to an 8.75 BB/9. As that suggests, Harden has been throwing a ton of pitches this season – he had thrown at least 87 pitches in every start so far despite only throwing more than 4.1 innings twice.

As Harden is a high-strikeout, high-walk pitcher, it’s unsurprising that he typically runs high pitch counts. Harden’s calling card with the Cubs last year were brilliant, 10 strikeout games in which he would be forced to leave after five innings and 110 pitches thrown. Also, given his injury history, pitch counts are often at the front of his manager and GM’s mind during each of his starts.

Harden’s pitch counts have been highly correlated with his success through his career so far. Below is a chart of average pitches per inning on a per-game level plotted against game WPA.

We see a strong correlation, and, in particular, a striking trend: if Harden can keep his pitches per inning below 16, he will almost certainly enjoy some level of success in his starts. He’s only run a negative WPA three times in 61 career starts in which he’s thrown 16 pitches per inning or fewer. The results are less conclusive as Harden’s average pitches per inning increases until his average pitches per inning eclipses 23. After that point, 75% (12 of 16) of his starts have resulted in negative WPAs.

Four of Harden’s first five starts resulted in an average pitches per inning above 17, with an average WPA of -.126. The other – his most recent start, prior to last night – saw Harden throw an average of 14.5 pitches per inning, right on the threshold where Harden is guaranteed to be above average. By WPA, Harden was +.056 in that start, despite 5 walks and only 2 strikeouts – not the most effective start, but he managed to record 8 ground ball outs, which were key in escaping with only three runs allowed in six innings.

Harden’s start on Monday was his best yet and by far. Harden went 7 innings and allowed no runs, striking out nine and walking none. He threw 108 pitches in the start, for an average of 15.4 per inning. That’s right in the range that Harden should be shooting for – as a strikeout pitcher who also gives up a lot of fly balls, Harden should look to avoid contact, and as such he will encounter many at bats of multiple pitches.

Of course, throwing fewer pitches generally means facing fewer hitters, leading to fewer runs. With Harden, however, his pitch counts will remain an issue for reasons other than his effectiveness. Due to his style of pitching, more pitches generally means more walks, which will kill any fly ball pitcher. Secondly, given his injury history, it is certainly in the Rangers best interest to keep Harden’s pitch count low. If he’s struggling to get through 6 innings in less than 100 pitches, keeping Harden’s arm out from under duress will mean that he’s not giving them enough innings to provide value in the first place.

Monday night’s start was a great sign on nearly every front for the Rangers and Rich Harden. If he can remain as efficient as he was in that start while maintaining the knockout stuff that allows for nine strikeouts in seven innings, he will be a key piece in a team that is emerging in a tight AL West.

If I told you that a team was hitting .274/.349/.476, including a league leading 38 home runs and 144 runs scored in its first 25 games, you would assume they had been playing well, right? That sounds like the kind of team that could get around a poor month from its starting pitchers – even with their starters allowing a 4.69 FIP and 5.34 ERA, this hypothetical team should have been able to slug their way to at least a .500 record, if not higher. Instead, the Arizona Diamondbacks, powered by Kelly Johnson, Justin Upton, and Mark Reynolds, are sitting at 11-14, tied for last in the NL West and 5 games behind the surprising San Diego Padres.

It’s not that their hitters or starters have been producing in unimportant situations, either. D’Backs hitters have been great, compiling a whopping +3.24 WPA , easily best in the majors. Their starters have been unimpressive, posting a mere -1.34 WPA. Still, between both these groups, the D’Backs have a +1.90 WPA, which would equate to a team that’s about 4 games over .500.

However, the Diamondbacks bullpen has been absolutely atrocious by every measure. Their 7.02 ERA and 6.17 FIP are both worst in baseball. They’ve been beaten by the home run in particular, allowing 1.94 home runs per nine innings. It all adds up to a WPA of -3.40 as a group. Most of the blame falls on the two late-inning relievers, Chad Qualls and Juan Gutierrez. Each has allowed 2 HRs and at least 4 BBs in 10 and 11 innings respectively. Qualls has compiled -0.96 WPA already, and Gutierrez is even worse at -0.99.

These players both have entered games in important situations – Qualls’s gmLI – Leverage Index upon game entrance – is 1.23, and Gutierrez’s is at a whopping 2.05. Not only has Gutierrez been ineffective, he has been ineffective in situations that are twice as important as the average baseball confrontation.

Blaine Boyer and Aaron Heilman have also struggled, combining for a large portion of the -1.45 WPA remaining for the D’Backs bullpen. In fact, only two D’Backs relievers have positive WPAs for the year – Esmerling Vasquez and Jordan Norberto, who have thrown a combined 9.2 innings. Overall, the -3.40 WPA from the bullpen pushes the teams total WPA to -1.50, which translates to the 3 games below .500 we have seen from Arizona thus far.

The -3.40 WPA so far puts the D’Backs on pace to receive a mind numbing -22.0 WPA from the relievers for the season. That, of course, is completely unsustainable. The worst relief corps from 2009 was the Pirates, at only -5.88. The D’Backs RPs have given up home runs on 15% of fly balls so far, a number that should fall as the season progresses. Still, there’s not much talent in this bullpen, and it projects as a weakness over the rest of the season.

The Diamondbacks have the lineup to compete even with a below average pitching staff. If Brandon Webb can return in June, the starting rotation would go from slightly below average to well above average. This is a team that should have the talent to compete if it can just get the bullpen to produce at any sort of reasonable, if still below average level.

Franklin Morales, the Rockies closer, was brought in to protect a four run lead on Sunday. Normally, this type of move would lead to criticism of Rockies’ manager Jim Tracy for wasting Morales’s powerful arm on a low-leverage relief situation. However, this was not a normal outing for Morales. Tracy inserted Morales in the 8th inning with one out and runners on first and second.

Appearances SUCH as these are rare – typically the closer will not enter the game in the 8th to only face two batters, especially not with a four run lead and two runners on base. This isn’t exactly the optimal situation for a closer to appear in, either. The leverage index was 1.47 – certainly an important situation in the game, but below the roughly 1.80 LI that is typical among major league closers and well below the target of 2.30 LI set in The Book (page 225-226).

However, I feel this was a great move by Tracy. First of all, Morales hadn’t pitched since April 28th – he was working on 5 days rest, and likely needed to get some work in this game either way. This reason is why it’s unrealistic for every appearance by a closer or relief ace to come in a super high leverage situation. Tracy found a spot, without regard for the inning, that would prevent Morales from becoming rusty and still allow his best reliever to help his team.

Secondly, the Giants were at the number two spot in their order. John Bowker and Pablo Sandoval were the next two hitters due up. Bowker is projected as slightly above average by the updated ZiPS and as solidly above average by preseason CHONE. Sandoval is clearly the Giants’ best hitter, projected for wOBAs in the .380-.390 range. The quality of hitters effectively raises the leverage index, making the situation even more crucial to the flow of the game. Morales, a left-handed pitcher, also held the platoon advantage over Bowker. The issue is null against Sandoval, a switch hitter.

Morales successfully navigated through pinch-hitter Andres Torres and Sandoval, retiring both via the strikeout. Manny Corpas replaced Morales in the 9th with the game at a 0.39 LI and managed to finish the game, despite allowing a leadoff home run to Aubrey Huff. Many managers would have flipped the two roles, allowing the inferior reliever to face the superior hitters in the higher leverage situation simply due to the other pitcher being labeled the closer.

For those of us who hate the roles that the save statistic and risk-averse managers have pigeonholed relief aces into, this game by the Colorado Rockies and Jim Tracy was a breath of fresh air. This was an example of exactly how to correctly manage a bullpen, and other teams and managers should take note.

If anybody’s career looked over after the 2009 season, it was Austin Kearns. The right fielder was coming off two seasons with wRC+ numbers of 72 and 79 respectively. He only appeared in 166 games due to injury. His HR/FB rate and BABIP plummeted. His fielding fell from excellent to merely average in the corners. All in all, Kearns went from a nearly 4 win player to a replacement level player all in the span of two years.

Kearns is seeing a complete career revival in Cleveland this year. No, he’s not going to come anywhere near maintaining the ridiculous 205 wRC+ he’s posted in 51 plate appearances. Still, the .340 wOBA projected by the ZiPS rest of season projection is a far cry above the sub-.300 wOBAs he posted in his final two years in Washington.

The key to Kearns’s year so far is power – mostly in the form of seven doubles, but also in two home runs. Kearns’s seven doubles already surpasses his total from 2009 and is only three behind his total from 2008. His walk rate is down, but that’s partly because of a higher Zone% and Contact% than any we’ve seen in his career. As pitchers realize that Kearns is once again a major league quality and even possibly an above average hitter, they will likely nibble more, and Kearns’s walk rate will regress towards his career mean of 11.5%. His power will decline, as the doubles will likely turn into singles, but Kearns still, as the ZiPS projection suggests, has a chance at being an average hitter even after a good amount of regression.

Kearns suffered from multiple injuries in 2008 and 2009, including loose bodies in his elbow, a stress fracture in his left foot, and a right thumb injury. Prior to these injuries, Kearns had been playing at an all star level. Thanks to a 10+% walk rate and solid power, Kearns was able to post above average wOBAs in both 2006 and 2007. Combining that with star-level defense in right field – +14 UZRs for two years in a row, Kearns was worth 3.8 wins a year in 2006 and 2007. With the injuries left in the past and with Kearns still only 29 years old – he turns 30 in May – there was still a chance for a career revival. The roll of the dice only cost Cleveland a minor league contract. Kearns has rewarded them well so far in 2010.

Francisco Liriano continued his excellent start to the season last night, with an 8 shutout inning, 10 strikeout start in a 2-0 victory over the Tigers. Now Liriano has only allowed 3 runs in 29 innings, good for a 0.93 ERA. This start is certainly reminiscent of Liriano’s fantastic 2006 season, in which he posted a 2.55 FIP, mostly on the strength of a ridiculous 10.71 K/9 and a fantastic 55.2% ground ball rate. Even though his 2010 FIP is similar, he hasn’t quite returned to the ridiculous level he was at four years ago. Both a .249 BABIP and the unsustainable lack of any home runs allowed have deflated both his ERA and FIP.

Still, there are some excellent signs from Liriano’s first three starts, which continued in last night’s start. Chief among them is his 51.8% ground ball rate. The home run plagued the left hander last season, as he allowed 21 in only 136.2 innings. His 12.5% HR/FB rate doesn’t suggest any sort of terrible luck. Liriano allowed a 41.2% FB rate last season, which would rank in the top 25 among qualified starters. His trend of avoiding the fly continued last night – of the 24 outs Liriano recorded, only 3 were made in the air, and only 5 total fly balls were hit.

The reason that Liriano’s run-allowed numers will likely remain at or above his 2006 level is due to a drop in strikeouts. His 10 strikeout performance yesterday rose his K/9 to 8.67, but that’s still well below his 2006 level. More importantly, his swinging strike rate is nowhere near the ridiculous 2006 level of 16.4%. Prior to last night’s start, batters whiffed on 11% of his pitches, and they whiffed on 12 of his 112 offerings (10.7%) on Tuesday night. That’s a good mark – about 2% over the SP average – but it probably won’t allow him to return to the one strikeout per inning form that made 2006 so special.

Just because Liriano likely won’t return to this mythical 2006 form certainly doesn’t mean that he won’t be a productive pitcher over the rest of the season. His strikeout rate is above average and his ground ball rate has skyrocketed. Both are excellent signs that Liriano can be a sub-4.00 FIP pitcher and power a Twins rotation containing multiple above average pitchers.

According to the Rockies official website, the team will be demoting opening day catcher Chris Iannetta and calling up catcher Paul Phillips. The likely reason for the demotion is Iannetta’s poor start – in 8 games and 34 PAs, Iannetta has posted a .133/.235/.333 line. His 36 wRC+ is among the bottom 16% of players with at least 30 PAs. Miguel Olivo has taken over the starting catcher role in Colorado, thanks to a .311/.340/.667, 161 wRC+ line in 47 plate appearances.

This is just another exercise in the dangers of using small sample sizes to evaluate player performances. Miguel Olivo is showing all of the problem signs that have resulted in a .279 career on base percentage and an 82 career wRC+. Olivo’s BB% and K% of 4.3 and 35.6 respectively are right in line with his career marks, and his ridiculous .375 BABIP and 38.5% HR/FB rate are the only things keeping his line afloat. There’s no way that he sustains this kind of production, and ZiPS suggest we can expect him to produce at his typical .287 OBP level for the rest of the season.

Iannetta, on the other hand, has managed to exhibit both power and discipline despite his major slump on balls in play. He still has an 11.8% walk rate, slightly above average, and his 18.2% HR/FB rate is right in line with his career numbers. As a player who hits a ton of fly balls, Iannetta is going to have a lower BABIP than most players – his career mark of .273 is 27 points below league average – but still, a .118 mark is completely unsustainable, and given time to work itself out, Iannetta would start hitting at his normal levels.

It shouldn’t take long for Iannetta to make it clear that he belongs in the major league and for Olivo to demonstrate that he belongs on the bench. Iannetta should especially thrive at Colorado Springs, one of the most hitter-friendly parks in professional baseball. When Iannetta comes back and starts put up numbers like his career .349 wOBA, people will likely claim that the minor league stint helped him get his head right. In reality, it will simply be hits falling in for Iannetta where they weren’t before.

[Statistics presented are prior to last night’s game]

Rangers fans are likely quite happy with their new DH’s production through his first 17 games. Vladimir Guerrero has posted a .409 wOBA in his first 73 plate appearances as a Texas Ranger, largely on the strength of a .364 batting average. Guerrero has only hit 2 home runs this year, a mark well below his career rate of one home run per 19 plate appearances and his 8.0% HR/FB rate is the lowest of his career. This is continuing a concerning loss of power from last season.

This is summed up quite succinctly by the following graph:

In his most productive years – including the 23 wins he compiled from 2002-2005, the first 4 years of the Win Value era – Vlad’s ISOs were over 100 points above the league average. His prolific power was mostly supported by the ability to consistently blast home runs. We only have HR/FB data from 2002 on, but in those first 4 seasons, Guerrero’s HR/FB rate was above 17% for all of them and even above 20% for the 2002 and 2003 seasons, well above the league average rate of 11.5%.

In 2009, his ISO plummeted to .164 and his HR/FB rate dove to 11.5%, both career lows. As a result, Guerrero posted a career low 110 wRC+, and given his position as DH, a career low WAR of 0.8. The projection systems all foresaw a rebound to 2008 levels of hitting produciton – .303/.365/.521 and a 130 wRC+. However, Guerrero turned 35 over the offseason, and a drop in power could certainly be caused by old age – especially given the beating his knees took on the turf of Olympic Stadium in Montreal from 1996 to 2003.

Guerrero’s 7.6% strikeout percentage is what is currently keeping his batting line so high. Given his career strikeout rate of 12.4% (14.4% the last two years) and the fact that his O-Swing% has risen to over 50% – nearly double the league average – it is unlikely that this rate stays so low. That combined with likely BABIP regression will bring Guerrero’s line rapidly down to earth. Even though Guerrero’s season has started excellently, don’t be surprised if 2009 Vlad rears its ugly head in the upcoming months.