Purcey's on a roll

Don't look now, but Purcey's been dealing over his last 35 innings. With young pitchers (or in Purcey's case, rookie pitchers), you like to see signs of improvement as they spend more time in the majors. And since Purcey's been given an opportunity to pitch without fear of a demotion, he's taken full advantage of it.

Starting on August 8th against Cleveland, Purcey has gone 35 innings, with an ERA of 3.60 and a WHIP of 1.29. He's allowed 2 home runs in that time - a respectable total, especially considering on the season he's allowed 8 in 53 1/3 innings.

More importantly for Purcey is his control - it's the reason he was in the minor leagues for so long. Until 2007 in AA, Purcey's lowest BB/9 in the professional baseball was 4.48.

Over Purcey's last 35 innings, he's walked 12 batters, for a BB/9 of 3.0. That's not great, but it's not horrible either. Meanwhile, Purcey has struck out 40 in that timeframe, for a K/9 rate of 10.3. Over that timeframe, Purcey's K:BB has been an extremely impressive 3.4. Even AJ, who has a similar skillset in this regard (IE. trouble with walks and huge strikeout numbers) only has a 2.6 K:BB ratio this year.

Again, I realize it's an extremely small sample size, but it's nice to see that over this small stretch that Purcey has shown some improvement. He's not walking as many hitters as he did in his earlier call ups, and he's getting ahead of hitters and striking them out. If Purcey can keep the walks down and the K's up for the rest of the year, then I think he's a lock (barring a Free agent signing) to start next year in the rotation. And I'm really looking forward to see what the new and improved Purcey can do over a full season.

Twitchy.