Jack Leiter Looks To Have Better Control Against Arizona Diamondbacks

Jack Leiter of the Texas Rangers will look to have better control of his pitches than he did on August 6 against the New York Yankees. In that game, Leiter pitched just 3.1 innings and walked four batters. He was erratic to say the least. The Rangers and Leiter are both lucky that he only gave up one run, because four walks in 3.1 innings isn’t usually a recipe for success. Can Leiter find the strike zone tonight against the Arizona Diamondbacks?

Jack Leiter Has a Big Walk Problem

Leiter has had a huge walk problem this season. In his last five games started, Jack Leiter has walked 18 batters. Yes, 18 batters! That is an astronomically high number, and points to something severely wrong with his mechanics or his pitching approach. Surprisingly, it is only in his last two starts that the walks have finally caught up to him.

Using the past five starts as a guide, Jack Leiter went at least five innings in the first three of those starts. He also had good strikeout numbers, striking out at least six batters in four of the five starts. It was only his last start against the Yankees where the bottom fell out underneath him. If it weren’t for the walks, we’d be talking about a pretty good five-game stretch out of him.

It Really Is Just the Walks

If you were to read Leiter’s stat lines to someone without including the walk numbers, they’d probably say, “the number of innings probably should be higher, but overall that’s not a bad stat line.” There is no way the Rangers aren’t aware that this is an issue. If they weren’t aware, then there’s no reason why he would’ve only pitched 3.1 innings against the Yankees. Let’s hope Leiter can rebound against Arizona, because once again, it really is just the walks.