Jimmy Nelson pitched his final game of the year Tuesday night but it likely wasn’t the way he had planned on ending the 2016 season.
He gave up five earned runs on four hits, walking another four while striking out only three in 5 1/3 innings against the Texas Rangers, bringing his earned run average back up to 4.62.
Unfortunately, this season, it has been more common than not to see Nelson experience trouble.
In the first half, he showed that he was struggling with walks, issuing 14 over his first five starts, (31.1 innings) equivalent to nearly one walk every other inning. At the time, it didn’t seem to matter, as his ERA was still a healthy 3.16 by the end of April. In May, those worries seemed to fade as he gave up only 14 in 40 2/3 while helping the team to win four of his six starts with a 2.66 ERA to prove it.
In June, he began showing more signs of distress (5.87 ERA), as his walk rate once again rose (14 BB in 23 innings) and his strikeouts plummeted (11K). Despite giving up two earned runs or less in three of his five starts, he also gave up six apiece in the other two and only once pitched past the fifth inning. The Milwaukee Brewers didn’t win a single game when he took the mound in that time span.
He made July look like he was ready for a solid rebound. Over five starts, his ERA on the month shrunk to a much improved 2.83. He generated more strikeouts (23) and slightly less walks (13) while pitching deeper into games (28 2/3 innings).
But in the final leg of the season, something again went amiss. His strikeouts remained consistent (47) but his walks resurfaced worse than before, as he issued 31 to go along with the whopping 68 hits he gave up in 55 2/3 innings. His ERA ballooned, totaling 7.28 in the last two months of the season, allowing the batting statistics against him to look like that of a highly-successful major-league position player (.301/.400/.491). Out of 11 games, he registered only two quality starts while giving up four earned runs or more — including Tuesday night’s loss — in seven starts.
To put a cap on his most recent performance, the two batters who got to him were previous teammates Carlos Gomez and Jonathan Lucroy – Gomez hit a three-run shot after Nelson walked a pair of batters in the third and Lucroy hit a two-run double with two men on in the sixth, giving the Rangers a 5-4 lead.
The start seemed to epitomize Nelson’s season overall. In one inning, he’d go one-two-three. In the next, he’d let two on and let the next batter drive them home. In this scenario, what they really seemed to drive home was his need to improve next year.
“I’m not happy with this entire season,” Nelson said before climbing on the bus after the game. “It’s extremely frustrating. I put in the work on and off the field, in-season and out of season. The only thing I can do is trust that it will turn.”
And the Brewers will have to trust that it will turn as well. Considering that Nelson is still under team control another year before he enters his first year of arbitration in 2018, there’s little motivation to do much of anything besides seeing if he can turn things around. If he fails to do so, he might be facing more time in the minors before he can prove his way back into the rotation.
With Junior Guerra and Zach Davies now shoo-ins for the 2017 rotation, Matt Garza entering the final year of his contract, Wily Peralta and Taylor Jungmann getting back on track, Chase Anderson entering arbitration, and the looming possibility of Josh Hader in the wings, competition for a starting job won’t be as easy as it started this year.
With the team only winning 12 out of 32 times he’s taken the mound this season, Nelson will have to do a convincing job in spring training to help ensure he starts next year where he did last April.
Jonathan Powell is the Managing Editor of Outside Pitch MLB and the Milwaukee Brewers writer. Follow him on Twitter @jonathannashhh.
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