Maddux Mastery Mystery

Much has been made of Greg Maddux's walkless inning streak - and why not, 54 1/3 walkless innings is nothing if not impressive. What might be even more amazing is that he's still two complete games from his personal record of 72 1/3 innings, set in 2001. That said, is this walkless inning streak responsible for Mad Dog's sub-3 ERA over the last month and half? Turns out that it isn't. As you can see from the following graph, Maddux's monthly WHIP (Padre blue line) and monthly H/IP (Charger powder blue line) are nearly identical for the season (he's only walked 21 batters in the 2007 campaign). Notice that his monthly ERA (Padre sand line) drops precipitously, and at a higher rate than his lowered WHIP, over the last quarter of the season.

Greg Maddux's monthly ERA(Padre sand),
WHIP (Padre blue) and H/IP (Charger blue)

So what is responsible for his fantastic pitching of late? I'm really not sure - nothing sticks out statistically. From my observations, Maddux simply seems to be hitting his spots better. During the first half of the season, Mad Dog took an inning or more to dial in his darting fastball. Recently, his balls have just been seeking the strike zone from the get-go. In this way, his walkless inning streak may be indicative of his improved control, but certainly isn't the cause of his improvement.