Originally Posted by
LT Profits
You are just looking at he stat line from Wednesday, but dig a little deeper.
It does not look like my article is up yet but here is a key excerpt:
...to say that Paxton was roughed up in his first start of the year last Wednesday when pressed into service after Seattle ace Felix Hernandez was placed on the disabled list earlier in the day would be an understatement, as he allowed eight runs on 10 hits in just 3.2 innings vs. the Padres, although to be fair, only three of the runs he allowed were earned.
Believe it or not though, there were actually some encouraging signs during that effort, not the least of which was Paxton averaging an excellent 96.6 MPH on his fastball. Yes that was his first start of the year, but if Paxton could maintain that velocity, it would rank third in the majors this season behind only Noah Syndergaard (98.1) and Nathan Eovaldi (97.0), making Paxton the hardest throwing southpaw in the league!
Also, probably the one thing that has slowed the ascent of Paxton in the past has been his control, but he improved on that at Triple-A this year where he was walking a professional career-low of 2.64 batters per nine innings when he was called up Wednesday, and he promptly displayed improved control in his first Major League start of 2016 throwing 67 strikes over 103 pitches.
So while the results were certainly not there in his seasonal debut, there was enough to like to expect improvement from Paxton going forward.