Williams has struggled with walks throughout his career but has been dominate enough for those walks to rarely come around to score thanks to his swing-and-miss stuff. This season, Williams has posted his best walk percentage (9.5%) since the 2020 season.
In terms of his stuff, there’s not a drop off at all. Williams fastball is actually showing a bit more arm-side run while the velocity is roughly the same. His famous, otherworldly changeup is still having the bottom drop out of it. The movement profile is slightly less than last season, but more on that later.
Of his 55 outings, 40 have resulted in no earned runs. No, that is not nearly the level you would expect of Williams, but it is also not a complete disaster. Recently, Williams has started to find his rhythm since being removed from the ninth inning role.
Over his last seven appearances, Williams has not allowed an earned run and has struck out three in three of those appearances, something he has only done in four other outings this season. In a recent outing against the Rays, a 10th inning appearance, we saw both sides of the good and bad Devin Williams.
A fastball drifted and caught too much of the plate, leading to a single before a changeup wasn’t located well enough, which resulted in a double. He answered by striking out the next three hitters with the final strikeout coming on a beautiful changeup that defied physics and actually bounced in the dirt.
I know a 5.01 ERA is ugly for anyone — especially Williams — but it is not indicative of how he has actually pitched. He’s not been what many expected, but a 3.01 FIP and 3.22 xERA are much better indicators of how he’s pitched this season.