Can another rookie continue the streak?

The Twins have put together another four-game winning streak, albeit against a couple of bottom-dwellers. They'll face the same one tonight, but instead of their best starter taking the mound, they'll send rookie Armando Gabino, who has only started five games in his minor league career. His numbers during those five starts have been impressive (a 2-something ERA), but despite that, fangraphs projects him to have an ERA of over 5 in the majors. Projections can always be wrong, but just as I have for a couple weeks, I'm tempering my expectations.

Advanced baseball statistics measure a pitcher's worth by how much he strikes out, walks, and gives up homeruns to batters. Indirectly, the amount of groundballs a pitcher induces can reduce the amount of homeruns a pitcher gives up. Fangraphs doesn't have batted ball data for Gabino, but his strikeout rate (5.76/9IP) in 2009 is low enough to assume he's another "put the ball in play" pitcher that the Twins are famous for. The problem is, the ERA's of those types of pitchers do not accurately reflect how well they're actually pitching. Nick Blackburn, the de facto ace of the Twins' first half, is a good example of this. Nick limits walks but also doesn't have the stuff to consistently strike out batters. His ERA was absurdly low (rivalring those of Felix Hernandez and Roy Halladay), but what's called FIP (fielding independent pitching, ERA when considering only strikeouts, walks, and homeruns) said that he was pitching at a 4.5+ level. Nick was still allowing a bunch of hits, he just managed to avoid one with runners in scoring position and giving up homeruns at a rate that no pitcher could sustain. So in short, he was pitching well, but also getting lucky. Now that the luck has turned the other cheek, his ERA is more reflective of his FIP.

Which brings us back to Gabino, who has a very low ERA in his only starts in professional ball, but his ERA is well below his FIP, which is why fangraphs is projecting him to have an MLB ERA two full runs higher than his AAA ERA. Which is why when I'm at the game tonight, I'm going to cheer for every zero he puts up, knowing it might be an uncommon thing. But of course, statistics by themselves can be just as reliable as the "old school baseball" folks who think Yuniesky Betancourt is a good defender.