As a Twins fan Francisco Liriano has made me well aware that coming back as strong as ever from Tommy John elbow surgery is far from guaranteed, but Josh Johnson of the Marlins is proving to be one of the operation's biggest success stories.
Johnson tossed a complete-game Sunday against the Blue Jays and is tied for the NL lead with a dozen Quality Starts in 14 tries. He's now 13-2 with a 3.16 ERA in 28 starts since returning from Tommy John surgery in the middle of last season and has basically improved his performance across the board since going under the knife:
IP SO/9 BB/9 GB/FB MPH Pre-Surgery 169 7.6 4.1 1.35 91.8 Post-Surgery 185 7.8 2.4 1.65 94.2
Johnson was a really good pitcher before the surgery, nearly winning the ERA title as a 22-year-old rookie in 2006, but since coming back his strikeouts are up slightly, his walks are down 40 percent, he's inducing 20 percent more ground balls, and his fastball has picked up another 2-3 miles per hour. Meanwhile, take a look at the same pre- and post-surgery comparison for Liriano:
IP SO/9 BB/9 GB/FB MPH Pre-Surgery 145 11.0 2.4 2.24 94.8 Post-Surgery 147 7.9 4.1 1.01 91.2
Liriano also nearly won the ERA title as a 22-year-old rookie and was basically as good as a starting pitcher can be, going 11-3 with a 2.16 ERA and 144 strikeouts in 121 innings while inducing over two ground balls for every fly ball. However, since the surgery his strikeouts are down 30 percent, his walks are up 70 percent, he's inducing as many fly balls as ground balls, and his fastball velocity has dropped 3-4 mph.
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It's been slightly more than "a mere speed bump on the road to greatness" for Liriano.
So despite losing the velocity on his fastball, Liriano still has a good K rate for a starting pitcher. It' just down from amazing to pretty good. His main problem is throwing strikes consistently. Pretty amazing how BB and velocities flip flopped.
Aside from not throwing nearly enough strikes, he's not mean enough. He doesn't want it badly enough. He's got more ability than every other Twins pitcher and yet he's the weak link. Baker, Slowey and Blackburn throw strikes. Perkins is either great or terrible, but at least he's maximizing his god given abilities. Liriano seems almost hurt and offended when his lollipops end up in the stands. He's afraid to use his fastball. Watch him pitch and it's straight changeups away and sliders in the dirt. He's behind every single hitter and it's maddening to watch. He seems all put back together, but mentally he's not all the way back. He's not nearly mentally tough enough. He couldn't even beat the A's last week. I saw his line...I watched the game...he failed miserably in the shutdown inning and got beat by such lumnaries as Rajai Davis, Kurt Suzuki and Aaron Cunningham. Two guys hitting around .210 combined (Cunningham is now in the minors) and a good young catcher who is essentially a singles hitter. He gets beat 0-2, he gets beat 3-2, he just gets beat. The Twins are not going to score when he pitches most of the time. He needs to go out to the mound with the attitude that the game goes through him. He just goes out hoping to cobble together five innings and 100 pitches of 3 run ball. He did get stood up a couple of times by better pitching, but by and large he's been pretty awful. It's hard to give up on a 23 or 24 year old kid with that kind of talent, but it's what's between his ears that scares me. No brains and no heart. I don't get it because he was great for the most part in the 2nd half last year. Maybe he's a slow starter, but I'm not buying it so far. He better watch his back or Anthony Swarzak or somebody that wants it will make him a reliever soon. With an offense like the Twins have, insisting on playing "fundamentally sound" players like Nick Punto, Brendan Harris, Matt Tolbert, Brian Busher and on and on, they can't afford to have a staff that doesn't fire on all cylinders. If he only threw strikes...
Yet another classic Liriano start tonight. I can't bear to watch and yet I'm transfixed with the horror...