Blangraphs

Does it sometimes seem like when you sit down to watch Blanton pitch that he always gives up lots of runs?
Yeah we noticed that, too. As great a pitcher as Blanton is there are somethings that even he really can't control such as the bloopers that fall in and the "clutch" hits that other teams get against him. Blanton really has had some bad luck to start the year.

 First let's look at his BABIP- which is 3rd highest in the league at .357 I think a usually BABIP hovers around .300. The ball is finding the hole more often than expected when Big Joe is on the mound resulting in more hits and more baserunners.

Next let's look at LOB% which is 63.5% for Blanton right now. A league average LOB% is ~72%. Meaning that 8.5% more runners have scored than we would expect. His Hr/Fb rate is almost exactly league average which means he isn't leaving especially juicy meatballs up there.

It's not like he's Kyle Kendrick up their with K's either. Joe has a respectable 6.29 K/9 and a good BB/K rate of 2.22 (for comparison Cliff is 1.11, but it's never really a fair comparison with Cliff.). Also Joe's groundball rate is among the leaders with a GB% of 55.6%. More than half of the balls hit off Joe are grounders.

So somewhat unexpectedly Blanton is putting together the peripherals for a very good season. He has already put together .4 more WAR than fan favorite JA Happ has for Houston this year and posted an xFIP (basically expected ERA) lower than Tim Hudson, Yovanni Gallardo, and Matt Cain.

Also word on the street is that he has developed an ABP.

By the hammer of Blan!