Patience is still key with Sean Newcomb

There was a common word throughout the Atlanta Braves three-year rebuild and that was patience, especially when it came to the young starting pitchers that began to trickle to Atlanta.

Now that the rebuild is over it seems that patience has gone out the window for many Atlanta Braves fans. It is now instant results needed for the postseason push.

Hey, I get it. Ride the hot hand. Move to a six-man rotation. Give starting pitchers a short leash.

Whatever it takes to get to the playoffs.

Sean Newcomb was the target of criticism over the last two months when obvious fatigue set in and the numbers showed as much. But it seems like it was forgotten that 2018 was his first full season as a starting pitcher.

Before I get into a fair and exciting comparison for Newcomb, let’s take a look at the drastic pre and post-All-Star Game splits for him.

A tale of two seasons

In his 18 starts before the All-Star Break, Newcomb carried an ERA of 3.44 with a strikeout to walk ratio of 95/49 in 99.1 innings pitched.

His BAbip was .265 and opponents’ slash line was .217/.309/.347. So while control was an issue, he got enough swing and misses coupled with an okay BAbip to be effective.

If it were not for his last two starts before the break, where he gave up five earned runs in both games, he possibly could have been an All-Star.

I will not boggle you down with all of his numbers after the All-Star Break but the ERA was 4.64 and his BAbip was .293 (!) in 12 starts.

What does this mean?

So where am I going with this?

The Atlanta Braves were very careful with Mike Foltynewicz over his first two seasons with the club.

He threw 86.2 innings in 2015 and 123.1 innings in 2016, before jumping up to 154 innings last season.

Much like Newcomb this year, locating was difficult for Folty. Walks plagued Newcomb, while opponents slashed .277/.349/.446 off Folty last year.

We all know the leap Folty took this season to become the unquestioned ace of the Braves staff and I expect to see a substantial step for Newcomb in 2019. The walks will go down and strikeouts will go up and he entrenches himself as a solid No. 2.

Now there is probably some question whether that is with the Braves or not as there are too many starting pitchers that are MLB-ready or close to it to keep. But that’s a topic for a different day.

For now, let’s circle back to patience with the big fella from Massachusetts, as I believe it will pay off in a huge way in the end for the Atlanta Braves.

Just ask Folty.