James Paxton returned from the DL Monday night and was dominant once again, as he shutout the reigning champs over seven innings while allowing just three hits. But this isn’t anything new from the 28-year-old. He has does done this before in his career, showing flashes of an ace. And just this season, Paxton has allowed only two earned runs over 20.2 innings (three starts) against the Astros.
He has been utterly dominant throughout many times his career, showing us the talent to compete for a Cy Young award. But he still flies under-the-radar, but it’s not hard to see why. Paxton keeps teasing us with flashes of potential every year but has yet to stay consistent all season long and have that one breakout year and contend for Cy Young.
For his career, the southpaw has 3.33 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 3.08 FIP, above-average 25.3% of total batters faced struck out, and an above average- 9.4 strikeouts-per-nine. He broke in as a 23-year-old in 2013, and started off the season in excellent fashion, posting a 1.50 ERA in his first 24 innings. But then missed the rest of the season with an injury, and his seasons have been up-and-down since then.
His main issues have been dealing with injuries, but his performances, when healthy, have gone back-and-forth. During the next season (2014), Paxton had a 3.04 ERA, but in just 74 innings. In 2015, his ERA was 3.90 and in 2016, 3.79. Not exactly frontline material, or what he teased us with his first two (shortened) seasons.
Then last year, he started to put it together, with a 2.98 ERA, 1.103 WHIP and, 2.61 FIP. In the process, he struck out 10.32 batters-per-nine and an excellent 28.3% of total batters faced. But the way he got there was puzzling. 1.39 ERA in April, .84 ERA in May, 7.20 ERA in June, then 1.37 ERA in July, then 5.2 ERA over five starts in August and September.
You’re allowed to have bad starts, but when you’re as talented as James Paxton, having bad months as often as he does is quite frustrating if you support the Seattle Mariners. And between all this, yet more injuries, as he threw just 136 innings.
This year, he has a 3.49 ERA, 1.053 WHIP, 3.03 FIP, and .629 OPS against. Also, he’s struck out 11.61 hitters-per-nine, helped by putting down an elite 32.3% of batters faced down on strikes. He’s already at 126.1 innings for him, which is a significant amount for him at this point in the season, but has also spent time on the DL, which is officially a given at least once or twice a year.
And not just the healthy, but his games have been direct 180s of each other too. He had 4.00 ERA in April, 1.67 ERA in May, 4.97 ERA in June, and 2.78 ERA in July. James Paxton will dominate the defending champs but turn around allow seven runs in two starts against the lowly Texas Rangers. That’s the epitome of him.
After a bad start to the season, he started to find a groove slowly on an upward trend. He had three straight starts where he went (chronologically) 5 innings, two runs, six innings, two runs, six innings, one run. And just when you thought he found his stuff and would be on the top of his game, he gets lit up for five runs over four innings in his next start.
During a seven-start stretch that encompassed all of May and his first game in June, James Paxton had a 1.59 ERA. During this stretch, he had two complete games (one was a no-hitter), seven shutout frames another time, and 7.2 innings of one-run ball another time. He had finally lowered his ERA below 3.00, and you thought, “He’s finally putting it all together.”
But next three starts he allowed 13 ER in just 14.1 innings, which inflated his ERA by almost a full run into the high 3.00’s. You’re not always going to be on top of your game, but a string of these bad starts is not what you usually see from the best arms, and frankly unacceptable when knowing just how good Paxton can be.
Whenever he trends upwards, he hits a large speedbump and goes the the other way, then will stabilize for a start or two, then the process will repeat itself. When guys like Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander, or Chris Sale have a bad start, they will usually bounce-back and be strong again. You see consistency in them, which makes them so great.
And it’s frustrating to so much up-and-down from Paxton because he’s thrown seven shutout innings twice, eight shutout once, a no-hitter, a complete game two-run performance, 7.2 innings of one-run ball, and seven innings of one-run ball this year alone. But even with those dominant performances, he has an ERA in the mid-3s.
He has frontline potential and has shown on numerous occasions that he can be one, but inconsistencies in performance and injury have plagued him throughout his career. If the Seattle Mariners were to clinch a wild-card spot, James Paxton would no-doubt start, but you honestly would have to flip a coin to predict what you’d be getting that day.
He would either flame out or, go seven-plus of dominant pitching. There’s usually nowhere in the middle. For a guy as talented as he, it’s been disappointing to see injuries plague him every season, along with scattered performances. Every time he has an outing like his last one, he just teases us even more and no one likes to be teased so often. Hopefully one year, he will be able to put it all together and finally elevate to elite status.