The Rock Cats and Pitching

In each of his 4 starts since joining the Rock  Cats,
B.J. Hermsen has gone over  6 innings.

Yesterday, I reviewed some notable hitting prospects for the New Britain Rock Cats. The team is now 10 games over .500 and is in first place with a 1.5 game lead over the Reading Phillies. So although the offense has been scoring plenty of runs, the pitching has also kept this team in games.

Today I thought I would take a look at the Rock Cats' pitching. Keep in mind that Lucas French, Lester Oliveros and Deolis Guerra have all been promoted to AAA Rochester, so less than 2 months into the season, the Rock Cats have lost 3 of their most consistent arms. With that being said, let's see how a few of the pitchers are doing:

First, some starters:

Logan Darnell: 5-2, 4.53 ERA, 51 and 2/3 innings, 35K, 16 BB, 1.37 WHIP.

Steve Hirschfeld: 3-4, 3.14 ERA, 49 and 2/3 innings, 37K, 14 BB, 1.39 WHIP.

Andrew Albers: 1-1, 4.31 ERA, 48 innings, 37 K, 4 BB, 1.35 WHIP.

David Bromberg: 1-1, 3.94 ERA, 29 and 2/3 innings, 26 K, 12 BB, 1.31 WHIP.

B.J. Hermsen: 2-1, 2.57 ERA, 28 innings, 16 K, 2 BB, 0.86 WHIP.


And now some of the bullpen arms:

Daniel Turpen: 3-1, 5.56 ERA, 22 and 2/3 innings, 4 saves, 24 K, 4 BB, 1.19 WHIP.

Luis Perdomo: 3-2, 2.45 ERA, 22 innings, 1 save, 22 K, 9 BB, 1.23 WHIP.

Bobby Lanigan: 1-2, 2.49 ERA, 21 and 2/3 innings, 3 saves, 22K, 3 BB, 1.11 WHIP.

Caleb Thielbar: 1-0, 2.61 ERA, 10 and 1/3 innings, 1 save, 7 K, 3 BB, 1.45 WHIP.

There you have it. As a group, there are no major standout performers -- no guys with a 1-point-something ERA or massive strikeout totals. But if you look a little deeper, some of the stats are pretty impressive: BJ Hermsen has been very good so far, and you have to like his control. In fact, I would say that, as a team the Rock Cats have shown good command of the strike zone. Perdomo, Lanigan and Turpen all have been striking out close to 1 batter per inning while exhibiting good control. And new Rock Cat (and Minnesota's own) Caleb Thielbar has been solid out of the New Britain bullpen thus far.

Finally, I'm going to dig a little deeper on Daniel Turpen. In two rough performances this season (most recently on Monday night), he allowed 4 runs and 6 runs. In those outings he pitched a combined 4 and 1/3 innings. In his other 18 and 1/3 innings pitched, he has allowed only 4 total earned runs -- good for an ERA right around 2. Not to imply that you can simply "take away" bad outings, but when we're dealing with relatively small sample sizes, it's important to at least note a couple factors that are contributing to Turpen's interesting stat line.

The Rock Cats play a noon game today, and a 10:35 a.m. game Thursday, so be sure to check back for updates!