World War Lannan : Battle 2010 : Lannan Strikes Back

When we last left the happenings in WWL, Lannan had thrown a hideous opening day salvo. He has done allright since then, with only his May 2nd game vs Florida being flat out bad, and after yesterday's game he stands at the "high point" of his season (oh ok - he did have a 5.53 ERA going into the May 2nd game and now he has a 5.55 ERA - you happy now?)

Has anything changed in John's pitching to account for this return to... "ok-ness"? No, not really.

• He still doesn't strike out anyone. His 3.14 K/9 is 3rd worst among qualified pitchers, and has actually dropped in May.
• He still walks too many. His 4.81 BB/9 is the 5th worst among qualified pitchers, although that is at least trending downward (from 4.88 to 4.71)
• He still gives up too many hits. The .297 BA he gives up is in the Bottom 20 of qualified pitchers.
• He is still getting crushed by lefties. .438 /.481 / .646
• On the bright side, he still holds righties to no power. .255 / .353 / .400

And yet instead of pitching himself out of baseball, he's still doing ok enough to stay in the rotation, and outside of two horrible games is tossing very Lannan-like baseball. Remove Opening Day and May 2nd (where he gave up 5 of his 14 XBHs to righties) and you've got a guy who's thrown 40 innings of around 4.30 ERA ball. You have to count those two games, as I always say "they did happen", but more often than not Lannan has been getting away with the same things he's been getting away with the past 2 + years.