After a very rough start to the 2014 season at the big league level where his ERA was 18.56 in the first two starts David Holmberg has put together three straight good appearances. The first was as a reliever where he tossed a shutout inning of work. It was a good sign as he had never had an appearance, over three previous starts in his career, where he hadn’t given up at least three runs.
On September 8th things went quite unexpected as Holmberg game out of the bullpen after just one out in the game when Dylan Axelrod left with an injury. The lefty went out and tossed 5.2 shutout innings with two walks and five strikeouts, throwing 85 pitches with 48 strikes. The outing nearly cut his ERA in half as it dropped to 8.25.
Last night he made the actual start for the Reds and he carried forward his run of success by allowing a run on two hits and two walks with four strikeouts in 6.0 innings. He threw 87 pitches with 53 strikes, though he also hit two batters.
The biggest difference, from a statistical standpoint at least, has been keeping the ball in the park. In his first two starts of the season he allowed four homers in 5.1 innings. In this run he has allowed one one homer in 12.2 innings. He’s also controlled the number of free trips to first base he’s allowed. He walked seven and hit two more in those first 5.1 innings pitched. In the last 12.2 he’s walked just five and hit two.
From a pitch selection look at things, he hasn’t changed much in the frequency of what he is choosing to throw. Last night was actually the lowest velocity of his career as he didn’t average 88 MPH with his fastball after averaging 89 in every other game of his career. His offspeed pitches were also down a MPH or two. That didn’t seem to make a difference and the drop was small.
Better control and keeping the ball in the park is always a good plan and while the control still hasn’t been strong (seven walks+HBP in 12.2 innings), it’s improved over what he had been showing early on and has led to better results. With the news coming out today that Mat Latos is going to miss the remainder of the season with a bone bruise, there should be more opportunities to Holmberg to log more innings as a starter. Can he continue to make improvements and keep the success going forward?