That's two starts in a row where Ned got pissed. Chris Capuano was pulled from last night's loss to Colorado after allowing 5 earned runs in 3+ innings. His ERA has jumped up to 5.16, a pretty big disappointment after a fantastic 2006 season where he seemed to have reinvented himself, cutting his walk rate nearly in half.

Capuano's walk rate is the obvious reason for this sudden drop in form. But, his current rate of 3.95 BB/9 is actually pretty close to his career norms prior to 2006. Capuano was effective in 2004 and 2005 with a BB/9 in the 3.5 - 4.0 range, so why can't he be effective now?

Comparing Capuano's '07 season to '04 and '05, the biggest difference I see is the number of hits allowed. Pitchers don't really have a whole lot of control over this - obviously a harder-hit ball is more likely to be a hit, but the total number of hits allowed has a lot to do with defense and plain luck. Is it Capuano's fault if a a bloop single ("Brady Clark hits") happens to fall just past the reach of the second baseman? This season, Capuano has a .315 BABIP, which is a bit higher than average.

Let's adjust that. Capuano has allowed 90 hits this season. Say his BABIP was .290, a number generally considered to be close to Major League average. All of a sudden, his H/9 is right around 9, almost exactly in line with where it was in '04 and '05.

OK, so if Capuano's luck evens out over rest of the season, he'll be back to where he was in '05. Cool, I think we can live with that. But why can't he be more like he was last year? It's entirely possible that '06 was a career year and he was playing over his head. But, that walk rate was almost half what it was every other year of his career. There has to be some explanation.

I did notice one other thing that seemed a bit odd. His '06 7.08 K/9, even though it was still respectable, was the lowest it has been since his rookie year with Arizona. This season, he's sitting at 7.68, highest since '04 (incidently, his next-worst season). It's not a huge jump, but it's still surprising to see that he's performing so much worse overall despite striking out more batters. Maybe he's trying harder (perhaps too hard) to strike people out. Maybe he needs to trust his defense to get hitters out for him. I'm very reluctant to consider an improved K rate to be a bad thing, but maybe its an indication of the type of pitcher Chris Capuano is.

My belief is that Chris Capuano didn't suddenly become bad pitcher - he's still at least a solid middle-of-the-rotation guy. I'm usually pretty big on low walk rates (which explains why I like Ben Sheets and Dave Bush so much), and last season he was fantastic. I'm no pitching coach, but anything he can do to bring that walk rate back down would be a positive. He's good enough pitcher that whatever he does, the strikeouts will come, as evidenced by his '06 rate.