Armando Galarraga

Armando Galarraga.....what happened? Well.....in '08 he had a nice little season. A 3.73 ERA in 175 IP and was gifted with a spiffy little 13-7 record. He started off in April of '09 picking up where he left off with a small handful of solid outings. Then it all caved in. He started getting smacked around pretty routinely and his ERA was skyrocketing.....only the great work of Verlander, Jackson, and Porcello covered up Galarraga's plummeting contributions.

It appears that it was pretty much a combination of scouting reports and good luck turning bad that did Galarraga in. Teams were laying off his slider and his fastball command didn't look as good. His BB/9 (Base on Balls per 9 innings pitched) shot up over one full walk per game from the prior year while his K-rate inched down from '08. The other factor came in his BABIP (Batting Average of Balls In Play), for those uninitiated, a league average BABIP is usually around .290 to .300. This is the percentage of balls put in play off of a pitcher that fall for hits. Pitchers gravitate toward the league average...if a pitcher is well above they are considered unlucky and due for a run of better luck. Vice versa if a pitcher is well below the league average, they're considered inordinately lucky. Galarraga's in '08 was a likely unsustainable .248. In other words, he had a leprechaun on his shoulder for much of '08. In '09 his BABIP rose to .302 and w/that his results sank to predictable levels.

How will he adjust in '10? Anyone's guess. He'll need his slider to start drawing swing and misses again plus he needs to regain better command of his fastball. However in the end, he just might not be that good. '08 was enjoyable...it really was....but Armando just might have been a One-Hit Wonder.