In Defense of Matt Garza

I for one am thankful that Matt Garza missed his chance to sign with the Angels when he didn't answer their phone call because he was on vacation with his wife in the offseason. Although he has been without a doubt the weak spot in the Brewers rotation this season, let's not get ahead of ourselves writing off the hard-nosed Garza. Since the Brewers made a splash in free agency and actually signed a bonafide pitcher, Matt Garza has the most losses in the rotation and the highest ERA and to be honest there's no close second. The Brewers rotation has been phenomenal this season so it's easy to point fingers at Matt Garza when you look at him relative to the other pitchers. Let's not forget Garza is exactly the kind of guy you want on your locker room and don't want to face on the field. The kind of competitor who wants to "kick [his opponents] teeth in" (to use his words) and the kind of fun-loving guy who pranks teammates and coaches during interviews. Plus he hates the Cubs so that's always a plus too.

If you compare his numbers to his career they are a little on the low side. Garza has allowed more walks and has had less punchouts per nine innings than the last few years. One of the contributions to the strikeout slump might be the loss of velocity on his fastball. Garza's fastball is almost down an entire mile per hour as last year. He has also had a tough time getting out of the first inning as over a third of his earned runs on the season have come in that inning. If you take away all of Garza's first innings his ERA drops over one run to 3.80. If you just look at the bare numbers they do not tell the whole story. A 4.83 ERA and 2-4 record barely scrape the surface of Garza's body of work. Garza has tossed five quality starts and has as many losses in those games and he does wins. As seen today getting shutout against the Cubs Garza hasn't been the beneficiary of a whole lot of run support. Beyond all that, an interesting stat is that Garza has the second-lowest FIP (3.74) in the starting rotation. FIP is "fielding independent pitching" which calculates ERA based on average fielding and average timing. Based on this you could almost make the case that Garza has been pitching the second best on average.

The Brewers have managed to win Garza's three no-decisions so they are actually 5-4 in his starts on the season. He has battled through some tough outings and shaky defense behind him at times and has labored in times Roenicke needed him to. He is the kind of guy who can be an absolute buzzsaw to any lineup and the Brewers have managed the best record in the majors with him out of form, so when he puts it all together look out.