What’s up with Guthrie’s turnaround?

Jeremy Guthrie has a 1.77 ERA over his last five starts. He’s pictured above pitching against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Tuesday, Aug. 3 — Buck Showalter’s debut as Orioles manager.

The starkest difference between the pre-All-Star Break and post-All-Star Break Baltimore Orioles, aside from Buck Showalter taking over in the dugout, has to be the turnaround by right-handed starter Jeremy Guthrie – a much-welcomed development for a team needing quality innings out of its veterans given the amount of young starters on the squad.

Guthrie’s ERA peaked at 4.77 on July 8 in Texas when he gave up four runs on seven hits in 4.2 innings, with five walks and just one strikeout. An All-Star Break and five starts later, his ERA is down to 4.04 after an eight innings of one-run ball against the Chicago White Sox on Sunday afternoon.

Over his first 18 starts, Guthrie compiled that 4.77 ERA over 111.1 innings pitched, giving up 34 walks and 112 hits (15 homers), and he struck out out 57 batters. Batters had a .774 OPS against Guthrie. His BABIP was .267. Over Guthrie’s last five starts (35.2 innings pitched), he has a 1.77 ERA on 30 hits (three homers.) Guthrie has struck out 30 against just three walks. He has held batters to a .611 OPS and has the help of a very low .243 BABIP.

That low BABIP won’t last in the long run (.280 career BABIP for Guthrie), but what’s really happened with Guthrie? In my opinion, Guthrie’s last five starts is the best he’s looked since 2008. He struggled mightily last season (5.04 ERA, 5.31 FIP, 5.22 xFIP, 1.58 homers per nine innings) after being designated with the “ace” label and just could never find his 2008 form (3.63 ERA, 4.53 FIP, 4.54 xFIP.) For his first 18 starts this season, Guthrie looked very much like he did last year, struggling due to his inability to miss bats, his lack of an out pitch and his propensity for the home run ball.

He now looks like he possesses a faster fastball than earlier in the year, and his curveball and slider both appear to have a lot more bite to them. I don’t know if he’s really missing any more bats than usual, but he sure as hell is getting weaker swings, resulting in weaker contact and his low BABIP. Let’s examine this in-depth.

In those initial 18 starts, according to Texas Leaguers, 52.3% of Guthrie’s pitches were four-seam fastballs; sliders, 24.9%; changeup, 15.3%; two-seam fastball, 4.2%; and the curveball, 2.1%. His four-seamer was clocking in at an average of 92.3 MPH, and his four-seamer, 92.0 MPH. Guthrie was producing swings and misses on 4.0% of his four-seamers; sliders, 6.6%; changeups, 8.2%;  two-seamers, 1.3%; and no swings and misses on Guthrie’s very few curveballs.

Long story short — primarily a fastball-slider pitcher who missed very few bats. Nothing ground-breaking here.

In his last five starts, according to Texas Leaguers, 57.4% of Guthrie’s pitches have been his four-seam fastball; slider, 21.9%; curveball, 8.6%; changeup, 8.0%; and the two-seam fastball, 4.1%. So, Guthrie’s use of his four-seamer and curveball are both up, while the use of his slider and changeup are both down. The use of the two-seamer has remained steady.

Now let’s look at the velocity of his fastball — his four-seamer has been clocked at an average of 93.6 MPH during his last five starts, and his two-seamer, 93.3 MPH. From my naked eye, I can tell that Guthrie’s fastball has a lot more hop to it, and he can easily hit 96 MPH these days, and is topping out at 98 MPH. This may very well be the hardest Guthrie has thrown his fastball for any stretch of time since 2008.

Now to the effectiveness of Guthrie’s pitches. He has generated swings and misses on 3.7% of his four-seam fastballs; sliders, 10.7%; curveballs, 6.8%; changeups, 4.9%; and no swings and misses on the rare use of his two-seamer. So, swings and misses are down on both his four-seamer and changeup, while swings and misses are way up on sliders and curveballs. His two-seamer isn’t nearly as effective as it was before the All-Star Break, but he very rarely uses it these days.

Even though the four-seamer and changeup are producing less swings and misses these days, those pitches seem to be generating a lot more weak swings (according to my naked eye, anyway.) There seems to be a lot more bite on Guthrie’s slider and curveball than before, as the increase in swings and misses support.

So how is Guthrie turning around his season? An increased use of his four-seam fastball and curveball. An increase in velocity on his fastball. Weaker swings on fastballs and changeups. More swings and misses on sliders and curveballs. Low BABIP. That’s how.