Posted by Bryan Tsao
Jon Garland has started slow for the Angels, and Dave Cameron notes that he's not missing any bats. I agree that that level of performance is not very sustainable, but would imagine that Garland is probably either injured or will regress toward his career averages as the season goes on. When pitchers get poor results, it almost always means that their components are off in some way. But even variations in more "core" components, such as contact rate, can be misleading in the short run. In my opinion, it remains to be seen whether this is a sign that Garland has lost his stuff or this is just one of those slumps that it seems all pitchers go through. Still, as Dave says, it's not promising, or rather less promising that it would be if all his peripherals were actually fine.
Bryan Tsao is the editor of The Hardball Times website. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions for both himself and the site via email.
