Blue Jays: With new-found control, Robbie Ray borders on elite

Control has long been Robbie Ray‘s biggest obstacle, but lately he’s put his wild ways behind him, and he’s really pitching well for the Blue Jays so far this season.

After throwing 7.0 innings of five hit, one run baseball against the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday, Ray has now dropped his ERA to 3.42 and his WHIP to 1.08 across eight starts and 47.1 innings pitched. The southpaw is 2-1 on the year with 55 strikeouts and just 10 walks. It’s all the more impressive when you consider that Ray walked six of those ten against the Royals on Apr 18 when he took the loss in his second start of the season.

Since that rough outing against Kansas City, the Blue Jays have witnessed a different pitcher on the mound. Instead of letting walks and long at-bats limit his success, Ray has transformed into a strike-throwing machine, so much so that he’s only walked one batter over his last six starts covering 37.1 innings, also hitting two over that time.

Without needless walks weighing him down, Ray is arguably doing some of the best pitching of his eight year career right now, and making the Blue Jays look pretty smart for so quickly re-signing him this past winter. By comparison, have a look at how he’s been hurt by allowing so many walks in the past, going back to his NL All-Star season in 2017:

More from Jays Journal

• Matt Chapman has been exactly what the Blue Jays needed
• Blue Jays: The goalposts are moving in the right direction
• Single-A Dunedin Blue Jays advance to the Championship Series
• Blue Jays: Comparisons for Alek Manoah’s Second Season
• Blue Jays: Adam Cimber, the unlikely decision King

2017: 162 IP, 71 walks, 3.9 BB/9, 2.89 ERA, 1.154 WHIP
2018: 123.2 IP, 70 walks, 5.1 BB/9, 3.93 ERA, 1.350 WHIP
2019: 174.1 IP, 84 walks, 4.3 BB/9, 4.34 ERA, 1.342 WHIP
2020: 51.2 IP, 45 walks, 7.8 BB/9, 6.62 ERA, 1.897 WHIP
2021: 48.1 IP, 10 walks, 1.9 BB/9, 3.42 ERA, 1.08 WHIP

Obviously it’s still early in the 2021 campaign, but so far Ray’s numbers have been the best of his career, and he could still regress a bit and set a new standard for himself.

It’s not just the improved control that is making Ray a more effective starting pitcher, but it’s gone a very long way to pushing him to a level where he’s easily the Blue Jays’ second best starting pitcher right now, and not just by default. His five quality starts put him among the top 20 starters in all of baseball at this early stage, and if you erased that one ugly outing against the Royals he’d likely be leading in a few categories.

He’s still a little too prone to the long ball, as Mike Zunino showed on Saturday when he took him deep for the second time this season, but that’s something you can live with when the southpaw isn’t issuing free passes. Saturday’s start was a good example, as he limited the Rays to just five baserunners, and when he did give up a home run, it was nothing more than a solo shot. When the 29-year-old is giving you seven quality innings, you can live with the odd home run from time to time if it means he’s throwing the ball over the plate consistently.

Hopefully the Tennessee native can keep this up, and maybe he really did unlock something with his partnership with Pete Walker, one that led him to re-signing so quickly after being acquired in a trade last season. Whatever it is, Ray has found the strike zone in 2021, and he’s pushing himself into a new tier of starting pitchers as a result.