Can Matt Boyd turn hot start into great full season for Detroit Tigers?

Boyd allows 9 hits, 3 runs in first 19.1 innings this season

Matt Boyd held the Baltimore Orioles to one run on two hits in 6.1 innings. (Dave Reginek/Getty Images)

DETROIT – The Detroit Tigers' pitching staff has been surprisingly steady through the first 15 games, and Matt Boyd is a major reason why.

In three starts, Boyd has allowed just nine hits, four walks and three runs over 19.1 innings. He's only recorded 11 strikeouts, but batters can't get on base, so the 27-year-old has stayed out of trouble.

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Reasons for skepticism

Boyd has shown flashes of brilliance since coming to Detroit as part of the David Price trade in 2015. He allowed just 14 earned runs while striking out 46 batters in 49.1 innings in July and August 2016. Last September, he allowed 12 earned runs and struck out 30 batters in 36.2 innings.

Detroit Tigers pitcher Matt Boyd (Getty Images)

But inconsistency has been Boyd's greatest downfall. In 26 games last season, he allowed at least five runs six times. Eight of his starts didn't even last five innings.

So how can Boyd continue to be closer to the guy sporting a 1.40 ERA and 0.67 WHIP than the guy with a career 5.29 ERA and 1.44 WHIP?

Tigers fans will remember the hot start for Shane Greene in 2015, when he allowed just 12 hits and one earned run across 23 innings in his first three starts. Greene allowed 20 earned runs over his next 11 innings and struggled throughout the entire season before being moved to the bullpen in 2016.

Hot starts are great, but they're just hot starts. If he stays healthy, Boyd will likely make at least 27 more starts this season, and these three can quickly be forgotten.

What's Boyd doing differently?

For anyone watching Boyd's starts this season, there's one blatantly clear difference: he's inducing more fly balls.

Last season, of balls put in play against Boyd, only 39.5 percent were in the air, which was even lower than his career 44.6 rate. This season, that number has ballooned to 61.8 percent, and batters are hitting far fewer ground balls and line drives.

Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Matt Boyd (Duane Burleson/Getty Images)

In terms of hard contact, Boyd is giving up about the same percentage of hard hits, but he's inducing weak contact 6 percent more of the time. Batters are making weak contact on 25.5 percent of balls in play against Boyd, which is by far a career high.

How is Boyd getting these results? For one, he's pitching up in the zone more often. Boyd doesn't throw in the mid- or upper 90s, but this year he's decided to use his fastball at the top of the strike zone much more often. This is something Tigers pitchers started working on years ago, most notably Justin Verlander during his return to greatness in 2016 and 2017.

For Verlander, pitching at the top of the zone meant more strikeouts. For Boyd, it's been keeping hitters off balance. He's coupled the high heat with twice as many sliders and fewer change-ups. About 11 percent of Boyd's pitches were sliders the last two years, but so far this season, 27.4 percent of his pitches have been sliders.

His fastball usage is down from 54.8 percent to 46.7 percent, and his change-up usage is down from 17.9 percent to 9.8 percent.

These are the types of significant changes to pitching approach that justify Boyd's improvement early in the season.

Signs of regression

Whenever a pitcher is having this much success without dominant stuff, there will be signs of regression, and that's certainly true with Boyd.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect Boyd to have a career season at age 27, but his ridiculous numbers will come back to earth in some capacity.

BABIP

The most obvious sign of good fortune for Boyd is the batting average on balls in play against him. Hitters have a career BABIP of .303 against Boyd, and so far this season, his BABIP against is just .132.

Tigers SP Matt Boyd (Getty Images)

Remember, if Boyd is getting significantly more fly balls this season, the BABIP is likely to end up much lower than his career mark. But it's not going to be cut in half. That number is obviously unsustainable, and hitters will start having more luck against Boyd.

HR/FB rate

With more fly balls comes more home runs, right? Not against Boyd, at least so far. Boyd has consistently given up home runs on around 12 percent of his fly balls allowed, but this year, he's only allowed homers on 5.9 percent of fly balls.

If he continues to pitch to fly balls, Boyd is going to give up more home runs. That's not a reason to ditch the current strategy, it's just part of the give-and-take that comes with pitching up in the zone. Even with Comerica Park as his home stadium, Boyd can't keep up a 5.9 percent home run to fly ball rate.

Strand rate

There haven't been many base runners against Boyd this season, but when there are, he's stranding them. Boyd has a career strand rate of 69.9 percent, which is low compared to the MLB average. While he'll probably improve on that number, he isn't likely to keep up his current pace.

Boyd is stranding 98.2 percent of base runners through three starts. Even though it's easier to strand runners when they rarely get past first base, Boyd will be hard pressed to be so clutch throughout the entirety of a season.

What does this mean?

There's no question Boyd has been masterful through three starts, especially in terms of limiting base runners and pitching to weak contact. That, combined with his batted-ball luck, has resulted in the best three-start stretch of his young career.

If this was happening in June or July it wouldn't be as notable, but since Boyd's doing this at the start of the season, everyone has noticed. Through three starts, he's been one of the most effective pitchers in baseball.

Even though Boyd's numbers will come back down to earth, it appears his new pitch tendencies are working, and there's a chance he'll turn into the middle-of-the-rotation pitcher the Tigers sought in the Price trade.

Boyd has faced bottom-eight offenses in each of his first three outings, but his next scheduled start is in Pittsburgh. The Pirates are fifth in the league in scoring, so it will be his first true test of 2018.

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About the Author:

Derick is the Lead Digital Editor for ClickOnDetroit and has been with Local 4 News since April 2013. Derick specializes in breaking news, crime and local sports.