Randall Delgado just slammed the door on Mike Minor
Randall Delgado knew he was in a situation where he could end up being sent down. How did he respond? He calmly out-dueled Josh Johnson t a tune of 6.1 innings with 7 strike outs, 1 walk, just 2 hits, and one earned run. Arguably one of the best starts of his career came at the perfect time for him.
Kris Medlen was sent down to the minors to get stretched out as a starter, and regardless of what the front office will say, he is going to come back up soon and take either Mike Minor or Randall Delgado’s spot. Right now it looks like the pressure is on Minor, but you can’t just make the decision based on the last few starts can you?
Well to say that Minor has just been bad in his last few starts would be skewing the definition of the word “few” just a little bit. He hasn’t gotten a win in his last seven starts and he has given up 13 homeruns in those games (38.2 innings). Also, in his last six starts he has given up 4 runs or more every game. Looking at there stats it is clear that Delgado has the edge:
| Team | IP | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | BABIP | GB% | ERA | FIP | WHIP |
| Minor | 58 | 7.91 | 3.26 | 2.02 | .307 | 34.1% | 6.98 | 5.37 | 1.47 |
| Delgado | 55 | 6.87 | 4.75 | .82 | .287 | 52.2% | 4.58 | 4.38 | 1.47 |
Sure Minor has better K and BB rates but Delgado leads Minor significantly in every other category except for WHIP. On the surface this reinforces the fact that Delgado has the better stuff. While Minor may have better command, his stuff isn’t that great—especially his fastball—and when he doesn’t locate perfectly, he gets hammered.
His HR/9 is awful and now that Andrelton Simmons is on the team, Delgado gets yet another advantage by having his GB% almost 20 points higher than Minor’s.
I really don’t see any situation where Mike Minor manages to stay on 25 man roster with Kris Medlen’s arrival coming any time now, regardless of how he pitches today. He has just been too bad for too many games, and Randall Delgado has put the Braves in a position to win almost every time he steps on the mound. His latest outing was just pouring salt into the wound for Mike Minor.
If Mike wants to bring back the success he had early on he is going to need to also bring back his pissed off “I deserve to be here” attitude that he had at the end of Spring Training and into the season.