In case you haven’t noticed, the Atlanta Braves are beating people senseless at Turner Field. The Braves’ 42-16 record at home is the best in the majors and Atlanta shows no signs of slowing down.
The main reasons for the Braves’ home success is their pitching. The Braves rank third in the National League in home ERA with a 2.99 mark. The one starter who has really stood out at home is Jair Jurrjens.
With his stellar performance on on Sunday against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Jurrjens is now 5-0 with a 1.81 ERA at home. If you compare that to his 0-4 with a 6.39 ERA on the road, you can see that Jurrjens likes the home cooking in Atlanta.
However, if you look deeper into Jurrjens’ home and road splits, his peripherals are pretty equal. Here is how Jurrjens’ home and road splits shape up:
Home: 7 starts, 1.21 WHIP, 7.5 K/9, 3.22 BB/9, .233 avg
Away: 7 starts, 1.26 WHIP, 5.5 K/9, 2.84 BB/9, .251 avg
As you can see, not much separates Jurrjens from on the road from at home. So why has he given up just nine earned runs at home and 27 on the road? It has to do with Jurrjens remarkable strand rate home.
At home, Jurrjens is stranding a ridiculous 89 percent of the runners on base. On the road, Jurrjens is stranding only 46.9 percent runners on base. That is a huge split.
Essentially, Jurrjens is putting on the same amount of runners at home as on the road, but on the road he is not making the key pitches when it counts. The average pitcher strands around 73 percent of the runners on base, so one has to figure this will even out over the next month and a half.
While Jurrjens should continue to win games at home because he plays on a good team and he is a solid pitcher, expect his ERA to start rising at home. There is no way he can keep up this strand rate.
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