The Pirates unlikely all-star starter gave up 7 earned runs in 4.2 innings of work, which raised his season ERA to 4.38. Correia hasn't been good since winning his 11th game of the year back on July 3rd. Since then he has a 9.41 ERA and has given up 23 hits in 3 starts (14.1 innings).
This rough patch doesn't seem to have taken much of a toll on Correia's confidence, which is certainly a good thing, but a little weird. Check out this quote:
So is he telling the truth? It's hard to tell really, depends on what your definition of "stuff" is. I can tell you this though. His average velocity tonight on the fastball was almost 2 miles per hour higher than his season average, his slider was also 2 mph faster, and his pitches all moved more, especially his slider. In that regard, Correia's tale seems true.
So what happened to Correia? The first thing I'd say is that the opposing lineup had a lot to do with it. The Cardinals have a really solid 1-8 and their big bats all have had incredible success in PNC Park, for whatever reason. Correia hasn't faced the best offenses this year, which could be making him look better than he really is. He's faced the Cubs three times, the Mets twice, the Nationals twice, and the Astros once. He did shut out these Cardinals for 7 innings in the first week of the season, and has also beat the Reds, Tigers, and Blue Jays at various points during this season.
I wrote this post during the all-star break taking a look at what we should probably be expecting from the rotation in the second half, and I had mainly good things to say about Correia. His BABIP is still well below .300 and his strand rate isn't alarming either. My biggest concern with KC all year has been the fly balls he gives up. At the beginning of the year he was getting a lot of ground balls which helped a lot, but recently he's been regressing back to the fly ball pitcher he always has been. If you give up a lot of fly balls, some of them are going to go over the fence and hurt you in a big way. That happened Saturday night, as his biggest mistake was a pitch left up and right down the middle to Lance Berkman, who crushed it over the center field fence for a 3-run jack. Later in the inning, Yadier Molina hit one of the most ridiculous home runs I've seen, one that barely got a piece of the outside of the foul pole for the second round-tripper of the inning. When Correia gives up a big number, it's almost always going to involve a home run or two, as it did tonight.
The key with Correia is keeping the ball on the ground as much as possible. He got away with some of those deep fly balls at Petco Park, but now he has less margin for error playing in the NL Central. The home run ball hurt him tonight and could turn into a big issue for his going forward.
So yes, his stuff was better tonight than it usually is, but that doesn't really matter when you leave balls right over the heart of the plate against a really good lineup, as he did tonight. Even his outs were ugly. I can't tell you how many outs he got on line drives, honestly he's lucky to have just given up 7 runs. It was a very ugly start tonight, but Correia seems confident and not too worried about it. I don't expect him to completely fall apart in the second half, although I think 4.00-4.30 is realistically where you should expect his ERA to settle by the end of the year.