I was very high on James McDonald before this season began. My expectation was for him to lead the rotation and really be the only successful hurler on the team. While McDonald hasn't been terrible this year, it seems that my prediction was pretty much backwards. Not many people would argue that he has been the Pirates worst starter so far this year. Let's take a look at the numbers he's posted this year before we get into some more in depth stuff.
Those numbers aren't bad, but would look a lot better if he would have had a better go of things in his first 4 starts. McDonald had a 10.13 ERA in his first 4 outings, giving up 21 earned runs in 18.2 innings pitched. Since then, he has a 2.85 ERA in 85.1 innings, much more McDonald-like.
The biggest and most well known issue with McDonald this year has been pitch efficiency. He has thrown less than 6 innings in 8 out of his 19 outings, and has failed to complete 5 innings 6 times. He's thrown 17 pitches per inning, a far cry from the rest of the rotation (Jeff Karstens is throwing less than 14 pitches an inning).
One thing you have to remember about McDonald is that he more of a strikeout pitcher than the rest of the pitchers in this rotation, which means he'll pretty much automatically throw more pitches than the other guys. However, McDonald 7.4 K/9 ratio is more than a run less than his 2010 figure (8.5). Hearing these things would suggest that McDonald is struggling with control this year. Let's check that out. Here are his pitch results from the previous 2 seasons with the Pirates (his stint with the Dodgers in 2010 not included):
2011:
You can see here that McDonald's strike percentage with the 4-seam fastball has been basically the same as last year. However, this year the pitch f/x has registered a 2-seam fastball in McDonald's repertoire, and he has thrown that for a strike less often at 62%. The control of the curveball seems lacking as well at 53.6% compared to last year's 56.6%. Falling behind in counts has lessened his ability to use the changeup to fool hitters, and he is throwing it almost 5% less often this year and getting whiff's on it 3% less.
I attended McDonald's start against Boston on June 26th and his start against the Nationals in D.C. on July 2nd, and it seemed to me that he was figuring it out. He went 6 innings against Boston throwing 101 pitches, and went 6.1 innings in D.C. throwing 97 pitches. That's not super efficient, but it was definitely a step forward for McDonald. So let's look at pitch results again, but this time let's split his season after his start on June 21st.
Post-June 22nd:
You can see from there that his strike percentages have gone up significantly across the board. Granted, that second graphic entails only 4 starts, but he has been very good in all 4 of them. His season strike percentage is 61.3%. It was 60% on the dot in his first 15 starts, and 65.9% in his last 4, so there is significant improvement there.
Not surprisingly, McDonald's walk ratio is up from last year, he is walking 4.5 batters per 9 compared to 3.64 from a year ago. He has also been less fortunate at stranding runners, at his LOB% sits at 77.5 in 2011, up from 71.7 in 2010. The home run ball has been another thing hurting him quite a bit, as he's surrendered 1.13 home runs per 9 compared to 0.50 last year. In his last 4 starts (24.1 IP), he's walked 10 batters (3.7 BB/9), struck out 23 (8.5 K/9), and given up 2 home runs (0.7 HR/9), so he's shown improvement in all those areas.
So here's my conclusion. McDonald's struggles this year have mainly been because of his inability to throw strikes at a good enough rate. In his last 4 starts, he has really improved upon that and has the good results to show for it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think James McDonald will be this team's best pitcher for the rest of the way out. If October comes and the Pirates make the playoffs, James McDonald will be the one towing the rubber for the Pirates in game 1 of their divisional series. Then we can tack another one up to The "Mc" Effect. Let's Go Bucs.