Left handed pitcher Jacob Constante got out to a rough start to the 2015 season. The Cincinnati Reds sent the 21-year-old left hander to Billings to pitch for the Mustangs.
In his first six games things could have gone much better. He threw 24.2 innings, while posting a 6.93 ERA with 19 walks and 18 strikeouts. Control was a big issue for the left hander as he walked 16.4% of the batters he faced while striking out just 15.5% of them.
Since then, everything has flipped. Over the course of his next five starts the left hander posted a 2.10 ERA in 25.2 innings with 11 walks and 25 strikeouts. His walk rate dropped to 10.6% over that span and he raised his strikeout rate to 24% in the same span. Walks down significantly and strikeouts up significantly is a good way to turn things around.
On Tuesday night Jacob Constante continued that strong turnaround with the best start of his career. Taking on Great Falls on the road, the left hander fired seven shutout innings allowing just two hits and a walk while striking out seven batters. In the game he recorded 12 ground outs, two more would be ground outs that went down as fielding errors.
That pushed his stretch run of six games where his ERA now stands at 1.65 over that span in 32.2 innings pitched. He’s struck out 32 batters and walked just 12 with one home run. Constante has also been a groundball machine in the span, generating grounders at a rate of 66% in that span, which was up from an already impressive 58% in the earlier stretch of the season.
With the run of things in the last five weeks the lefty has lowered his ERA to 3.92 on the season and he now has 50 strikeouts in 57.1 innings to go with 31 walks. Overall on the season his numbers are solid, but he’s been trending in the right direction for a while now and has two starts left this season to keep building on the turnaround.